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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. #| 

UXITED STATES OF AMERICA.} 






THE 



LAWS OF SHORT WHIST 



•EDITED BY 



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ARLINGTON. 

ARMY AND NAYY. 

ARTHUR'S. 

BOODLE'S. 

BRIGHTON AND SUSSEX. 

BRIGHTON UNION. 

BROOKES'S. 

CARLTON. 

CHELTENHAM AND 

GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 
CONSERVATIVE. 
GARRICK. 



GUARDS'. 

JUNIOR CARLTON. 
KILDARE STREET 
LEINSTER. 

OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. 
PORTLAND. 
RALEIGH. 
REFORM. 
ROYAL YACHT 
SQUADRON. 
ST. JAMES'S. 
WHITE'S. 



A TREATISE ON THE GAME 



By J. C. 



First American Edition, with an Introduction. 




NEW YORK: 

LEYPOLDT & HOLT. 
1866. 



*(* 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by 

LEYPOLDT & HOLT, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for 
the Southern District of New York. 



STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON & COMPANY, 
PHILADELPHIA. 



TO WHIST-PLAYERS. 



Some years ago I suggested to the late Hon. George 
Anson (one of the most accomplished whist-players 
of his day) that, as the supremacy of Short Whist 
was an acknowledged fact, a revision and reforma- 
tion of Hoyle's Eules would confer a boon on whist- 
players generally, and on those especially to whom 
disputes and doubtful points were constantly re- 
ferred. Our views coincided, but the project was, 
for the following reason, abandoned. Fully aware 
that a more diffuse code of laws, sanctioned by 
authority of the leading clubs, was an absolute 
necessity, still more conscious were we that in per- 
suading the whist-world to adopt any innovation on 
old rules, we must incur a certain amount of diffi- 
culty and trouble, with a very uncertain chance of 
success. 

In subsequent years, having witnessed many 
questionable cases, which, despite the existence of 



4 TO WHIST-PLAYERS. 

Hoyle and other authors, were invariably referred 
to the whist-players of the day, I determined to 
make an effort, and appeal to some of the London 
clubs for their assistance and support. The follow- 
ing gentlemen most kindly consented to co-operate 
with me, and appointed J. Clay, Esq., as their 
chairman : — 

G. Bentinck, Esq., M.P., Arlington; Carlton; Travellers'; 

White's. 
J. Bushb, Esq., Arlington; Arthur's ; Boodle's; 

Portland; Travellers' ; White's. 
J. Clay, E#q., M.P., Arlington; Oxford and Cam- 

bridge; Portland. 
C. Greville, Esq., Arlington; Broohe's; Travellers'; 

White's. 
R. Kxightley, Esq., M.P., Arlington; Boodle's; Carlton; 

White's. 
H. B. Mayxe, Esq., Arlington; Arthur's; Portland; 

Oxford and Cambridge. 
G-. Payne, Esq., Arlington; Arthur's; White's. 

Colonel Pipon, Arlington; Army and Navy; 

Portland, 

On May 2, 1863, the committee of the Arlington 
Club passed the following resolution :— 

That the above-mentioned gentlemen do act as a conv 



TO WHIST-PLAYERS. 5 

mittee to frame a Code of Rules for Whist, which, if ap- 
proved, be adopted at the Arlington Club. 

H. J. ROUS, Chairman. 

This committee, having prepared a code of laws, 
sent it to the Portland, with a request that it might 
be adopted by that club. At a general meeting the 
following gentlemen most kindly consented to act as 
the Portland Club Whist Committee : — 

H. D. Joxes, Esq., Chairman. 



Charles Adams, Esq. 
W. F. Barixg, Esq. 
H. Fitzroy, Esq. 



Saml. Petrie, Esq. 
H. M. Riddell, Esq. 
R. Wheble, Esq. 



Their suggestions and additions were immediately 
accepted by the Arlington, and on Saturday, April 
30, 1864, the following resolution was proposed and 
carried unanimously : — 

Arlington Club. 
That the Laws of Short Whist, as framed by the Whist 
Committee and edited by John Loraine Baldwin, Esq., be 
adopted at this Club. 

BEAUFORT, Chairman. 

I will no longer trespass on the reader's time 
and patience than to express my very grateful 



6 TO WHIST-PLAYERS. 

thanks to all those gentlemen who have so kindly 
lent their valuable aid in supplying a want in the 
whist-world, — viz., a code of laws which has already 
received the sanction of some, and will, I trust, 
eventually obtain the sanction of all the leading 
clubs of London. 

John Loraine Baldwin. 
May, 1864. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO THE 
AMERICAN EDITION. 



Although the game of Short Whist has been for 
some time the current game in Europe, it is still com- 
paratively new to American players. 

The volume herewith presented contains a code of 
laws which, as a standard for reference, have been 
accepted by the best authorities ; but, as a manual of 
instruction for the uninitiated, they require some 
little explanation. 

The only difference not readily comprehensible be- 
tween Short Whist and the old-fashioned game is in 
the manner of scoring.. The laws bearing on this sub- 
ject are those marked 1, 8, 9, and 10. 

In Short Whist the "Rubber" (see law 1) takes iho 
place of the "Game," as played under the old method. 
It takes about the same time to play a rubber of Short 
Whist that it does to play a game in the old way ; and 
there are peculiarities in the scoring which make the 
rubber the integral standard adopted to test the 
players, just as the game is the integer under the old 

7 



8 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

practice. On this account, when a rubber is decided in 
two games, a new rubber at once begins. The reasons 
for this will become apparent as we proceed. 

The word "point," as used in the statement of laws 
8, 9, and 10 (which see), is equivalent to the word 
"game" in the nomenclature of old-fashioned whist. 
For example, a treble (see law 8) is one game of the 
value of three ordinary games, a double is one game 
of the value of two ordinary games, and a single is an 
ordinary game. 

The winners of the rubber (see law 9) score as if 
they had won two additional games. For example : if 
the winners have won two singles during the rubber, 
they score four, — two for the games and two for 
rubber points. 

But (see law 10) if, in the case just stated, the 
winners of the rubber did not win it in the first two 
games, and if the losers of the rubber won the second 
game, scoring on it a treble, their three points would 
have to be deducted from the four points scored by the 
winners of the rubber, leaving the latter winners by 
only one point. This makes manifest the reason for 
giving the winners of the rubber the two rubber 
points ; for without them, in the case just stated, the 
winners would score but two, while the losers would 
score three. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 9 

Perhaps a second illustration will make the princi- 
ples already explained, more clearly understood. Sup- 
pose the winners of a rubber to have scored a treble on 
the first or second game, and a single on the third : this 
makes their score four for games, and two for rubber 
points, — total six. Suppose that the losers of the rub- 
ber won a double on the first or second game : these 
two points must be deducted from the six scored by 
the winners of the rubber, leaving the latter winners 
by but four points. 

From the foregoing, if it be fortunately expressed, 
it will be understood that the winners of a " rubber" of 
Short Whist may win by from one to eight points, just 
as the winners of a "game" of old-fashioned whist may 
win by from one to eleven. 

n. h. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

The Laws or Short Whist 13-34 

The Rubber 13 

Scoring 13 

Cutting 15 

Formation of Table 15 

Cutting Cards of equal value .,. 16 

Cutting out 16 

Entry and Re-entry 16 

Shuffling 17 

The Deal 18 

A New Deal 19 

A Misdeal 20 

The Trump Card 22 

Cards liable to be Called 23 

Cards played in Error, or not played to a Trick 26 

The Revoke 27 

Calling for New Cards 30 

General Rules 30 

Etiquette of Whist 32 

Dummy , 33 

Double Dummy 34 

11 



THE LAWS OF SHORT WHIST. 



THE RUBBER. 



1. The rubber is the best of three games. If 
the first two games be won by the same players, 
the third game is not played. 

SCORING. 

2. A game consists of five points. Each trick, 
above six, counts one point. 

3. Honors, i.e., Ace, King, Queen, and Knave 
of trumps, are thus reckoned : 

If a player and his partner, either separately 
or conjointly, hold — 

I. The four honors, they score four points. 

II. Any three honors, they score two points. 

III. Only two honors, they do not score. 

4. Those players who, at the commencement 

of a deal, are at the score of four, cannot score 

honors. 

13 



14 THE LAWS OF SHORT WHIST. 

5. The penalty for a revoke takes precedence of 
all other scores. Tricks score next. Honors last 

6. Honors, unless claimed before the trump 
card of the following deal is turned up, cannot be 
scored. 

7. To score honors is not sufficient; they 
must be called at the end of the hand : if so 
called, they may be scored at any time during 
the game. 

8. The winners gain — 

I. A treble, or game of three points,* when 
their adversaries have not scored. 

II. A double, or game of two points, when 
their adversaries have scored less than three. 

III. A single, or game of one point, when their 
adversaries have scored three, or four. 

9. The winners of the rubber gain two points 
(commonly called the rubber points), in addition 
to the value of their games. 

10. Should the rubber have consisted of three 
games, the value of the losers' game is deducted 
from the gross number of points gained by their 
opponents. 

11. If an erroneous score be proved, such mis- 
take can be corrected prior to the conclusion of 
the game in which it occurred, and such game is 

* See Introduction to American edition. 



FORMATION OF TABLE. 15 

Dot concluded until the trump card of the follow- 
ing deal has been turned up. 

12. If an erroneous score, affecting the amount 
of the rubber, be proved, such mistake can be 
rectified at any time during the rubber. 

CUTTING. 

13. The ace is the lowest card. 

14. In all cases, every one must cut from the 
same pack. 

14. Should a player expose more than one card, 
he must cut again. 

FORMATION OF TABLE. 

16. If there are more than four candidates, the 
players are selected by cutting ; those first in the 
room having the preference. The four who cut 
the lowest cards play first, and again cut to decide 
on partners ; the two lowest play against the two 
highest ; the lowest is the dealer, who has choice 
of cards and seats, and having once made his 
selection, must abide by it. 

17. When there are more than six candidates, 
those who cut the two next lowest cards belong to 
the table, which is complete with six players; on 
the retirement of one of those six players, the 



16 THE LAWS OF SHORT WHIST 

candidate who cut the next lowest card has a 
prior right to any after comer to enter the table. 

CUTTING CARDS OF EQUAL VALUE. 

18. Two players cutting cards of equal value, 
unless such cards are the two highest, cut again ; 
should they be the ^two lowest, a fresh cut is 
necessary to decide which of those two deals. 

19. Three players cutting cards of equal value 
cut again ; should the fourth (or remaining) card 
be the highest, the two lowest of the new cut are 
partners, the lower of those two the dealer; 
should the fourth card be the lowest, the two high- 
est are partners, the original lowest the dealer. 

CUTTING OUT. 

20. At the end of a rubber, should admission 
be claimed by any one ; or by two candidates, he 
who has, or they who have, played a greater 
number of consecutive rubbers than the others 
is, or are, out; but when all have played the 
same number, they must cut to decide upon the 
out-goers ; the highest are out. 

ENTRY AND RE-ENTRY. 

21. A caudidate wishing to enter a table must 



SHUFFLING. 17 

declare such intention prior to any of the players 
having cut a card, either for the purpose of com- 
mencing a fresh rubber, or of cutting out. 

22. In the formation of fresh tables, those can- 
didates who have neither belonged to nor played 
at any other table have the prior right of entry ; 
the others decide their right of admission by 
cutting. 

23. Any one quitting a table prior to the con- 
clusion of a rubber may, with consent of the 
other three players, appoint a substitute in his 
absence during that rubber. 

24. A player cutting into one table, whilst be- 
longing to another, loses his right of re-entry into 
that latter, and takes his chance of cutting in, as 
if he were a fresh candidate. 

25. If any one break up a table, the remain- 
ing players have the prior right to him of entry 
into any other, and should there not be sufficient 
vacancies at such other table to admit all those 
candidates, they settle their precedence by cutting. 

SHUFFLING. 

26. The pack must neither be shuffled below 
the table nor so that the face of any card be seen. 

27. The pack must not be shuffled during the 
play of the hand, 



18 THE LAWS OF SHORT WHIST. 

28. A pack, having been played with, must 
neither be shuffled by dealing it into packets nor 
across the table. 

29. Each player has a right to shuffle, once 
only, except as provided by Rule 32, prior to a 
deal, after a false cut, or when a new deal has 
occurred. 

30. The dealer's partner must collect the cards 
for the ensuing deal, and has the first right to 
shuffle that pack. 

31. Each player after shuffling must place the 
cards properly collected, and face downwards, to 
the left of the player about to deal. 

32. The dealer has always the right to shuffle 
last; but should a card or cards be seen during 
his shuffling, or whilst giving the pack to be cut, 
he may be compelled to re-shuffle. 

THE DEAL. 

33. Each player deals in his turn; the right 
of dealing goes to the left. 

34. The player on the dealer's right cuts the 
pack, and, in dividing it, must not leave fewer 
than four cards in either packet ; if in cutting, or 
in replacing one of the two packets on the other, 
a card be exposed, or if there be any confusion 
of the cards, or a doubt as to the exact place in 



A NEW DEAL. 19 

which the pack was divided, there must be a 
fresh cut. 

35. When a player, whose duty it is to cut, has 
once separated the pack, he cannot alter his inten- 
tion; he can neither re-shuffle nor re-cut the 
cards. 

36. When the pack is cut, should the dealer 
shuffle the cards, he loses his deal. 

A NEW DEAL. 

37. There must be a new deal — 

I. If during a deal, or during the play of a 
hand, the pack be proved incorrect or imperfect. 

II. If any card, excepting the last, be faced in 
the pack. 

38. If, whilst dealing, a card be exposed by 
the dealer or his partner, should neither of the 
adversaries have touched the cards, the latter can 
claim a new deal ; a card exposed by either adver- 
sary gives that claim to the dealer, provided that 
his partner has not touched a card ; if a new deal 
does not take place, the exposed card cannot be 
called. 

39. If, during dealing, a player touch any of 
his cards, the adversaries may do the same, with- 
out losing their privilege of claiming a new deal, 
should chance give them such option. 



20 THE LAWS OF SHORT WHIST. 

40. If, in dealing, one of the last cards be ex- 
posed, and the dealer turn up the trump before 
there is reasonable time for his adversaries to de- 
cide as to a fresh deal, they do not thereby lose 
their privilege. 

41. If a player, whilst dealing, look at the 
trump card, his adversaries have a right to see it, 
and may exact a new deal. 

42. If a player take into the hand dealt to 
him a card belonging to the other pack, the ad- 
versaries, on discovery of the error, may decide 
whether they will have a fresh deal or not. 

A MISDEAL. 

43. A misdeal loses the deal. 

44. It is a misdeal — 

I. Unless the cards are dealt into four packets, 
one at a time in regular rotation, beginning with 
the player to the dealer's left. 

II. Should the dealer place the last (i.e., the 
trump) card, face downwards, on his own or any 
other pack. 

III. Should the trump card not come in its 
regular order to the dealer; but he does not lose 
his deal if the pack be proved imperfect. 

IV. Should a player have fourteen cards, and 
either of the other three less than thirteen. 



A 31ISDEAL. 21 

V. Should the dealer, under an impression 
that he has made a mistake, either count the 
cards on the table, or the remainder of the pack. 

VI. Should the dealer deal two cards at once, 
or two cards to the same hand, and then deal a 
third; but if, prior to dealing that third card, 
the dealer can, by altering the position of one 
card only, rectify such error, he may do so, ex- 
cept as provided by the second paragraph of this 
law. 

VII. Should the dealer omit to have the pack 
cut to him, and the adversaries discover the error, 
prior to the trump card being turned up, and be- 
fore looking at their cards, but not after having 
done so. 

45. A misdeal does not lose the deal if, during 
the dealing, either of the adversaries touch the 
cards prior to the dealer's partner having done 
so; but should the latter have first interfered 
with the cards, notwithstanding either or both of 
the adversaries have subsequently done the same, 
the deal is lost. 

46. Should three players have their right 
number of cards, the fourth have less than thir- 
teen, and not discover such deficiency until he 
has played any of his cards, the deal stands good; 
should he have played, he is answerable for any 



22 THE LAWS OF SHORT WHIST. 

revoke lie may have made as if the missing card 
or cards had been in his hand; he may search the 
other pack for it or them. 

47. If a pack, during or after a rubber, be 
proved incorrect or imperfect, such proof does 
not alter any past score, game, or rubber; that 
hand in which the imperfection was detected is 
null and void; the dealer deals again. 

48. Any one dealing out of turn, or with the 
adversary's cards, may be stopped before the 
trump card is turned up, after which the game 
must proceed as if no mistake had been made. 

49. A player can neither shuffle, cut, nor deal 
for his partner without the permission of his op- 
ponents. 

50. If the adversaries interrupt a dealer whilst 
dealing, either by questioning the score or assert- 
ing that it is not his deal, and fail to establish 
such claim, should a misdeal occur, he may deal 
again. 

51. Should a player take his partner's deal and 
misdeal, the latter is liable to the usual penalty, 
and the adversary next in rotation to the player 
who ought to have dealt then deals. 

THE TRUMP CARD. 

52. The dealer, when it is his turn to play to 



CARDS LIABLE TO BE CALLED. 23 

the first trick, should take the trump card into 
his hand; if left on the table after the first trick 
be turned and quitted, it is liable to be called ; 
his partner may at any time remind him of the 
liability. 

53. After the dealer has taken the trump card 
into his hand, it cannot be asked for ; a player 
naming it at any time during the play of that 
hand is liable to have his highest or lowest trump 
called. 

54. If the dealer take the trump card into his 
hand before it is his turn to play, he may be de- 
sired to lay it on the table; should he show a 
wrong card, this card may be called, as also a 
second, a third, &c, until the trump card be pro- 
duced. 

55. If the dealer declare himself unable to 
recollect the trump card, his highest or lowest 
trump may be called at any time during that 
hand, and, unless it cause him to revoke, must 
be played; the call may be repeated, but not 
changed, i.e. from highest to lowest, or vice versci, 
until such card is played. 

CARDS LIABLE TO BE CALLED. 

56. All exposed cards are liable to be called, 
and must be left on the table; but a card is not 



24 THE LAWS OF SHORT WHIST. 

an exposed card when dropped on the floor or 
elsewhere below the table. 

The following are exposed cards : — 

I. Two or more cards played at once. 

II. Any card dropped with its face upwards, 
or in any way exposed on or above the table, 
even though snatched up so quickly that no one 
can name it. 

57. If any one play to an imperfect trick the 
best card on the table, or lead one which is a 
winning card as against his adversaries, and then 
lead again, or play several such winning cards, 
one after the other, without waiting for his part- 
ner to play, the latter may be called on to win, 
if he can, the first or any other of those tricks, 
and the other cards thus improperly played are 
exposed cards. 

58. If a player, or players, under the impres- 
sion that the game is lost, or won, or for other 
reasons, throw his or their cards on the table face 
upwards, such cards are exposed, and liable to be 
called, each player's by the adversary; but should 
one player alone retain his hand, he cannot be 
forced to abandon it. 

59. If all four players throw their cards on the 
table face upwards, the hands are abandoned, and 
no one can again take up his cards. Should this 



CARDS LIABLE TO BE CALLED. 25 

general exhibition show that the game might 
have been saved or won, neither claim can be 
entertained unless a revoke be established. The 
revoking players are then liable to the following 
penalties: they cannot under any circumstances 
win the game by the result of that hand, and the 
adversaries may add three to their score, or de- 
duct three from that of the revoking players. 

60. A card detached from the rest of the hand 
so as to be named is liable to be called; but 
should the adversary name a wrong card, he is 
liable to have a suit called when he or his partner 
has the lead. 

61. If a player who has rendered himself liable 
to have the highest or lowest of a suit called fail 
to play as desired, or if when called on to lead 
one suit he lead another, having in his hand one 
or more cards of that suit demanded, he incurs 
the penalty of a revoke. 

62. If any player lead out of turn, his adver- 
saries may either call the card erroneously led, or 
may call a suit from him or his partner when it 
is next the turn of either of them to lead. 

63. If any player lead out of turn, and the 
other three have followed him, the trick is com- 
plete, and the error cannot be rectified; but if 
only the second, or the second and third, have 



26 THE LAWS OF SHORT WHIST 

played to the false lead, their cards, on discovery 
of the mistake, are taken back : there is no 
penalty against any one, excepting the original 
offender, whose card may be called, or he, or his 
partner, when either of them has next the lead, 
may be compelled to play any suit demanded by 
the adversaries. 

6-±. In no case can a player be compelled to 
play a card which would oblige him to revoke. 

65. The call of a card may be repeated until 
such card has been played. 

66. If a player called on to lead a suit have 
none of it, the penalty is paid. 

CARDS PLAYED IN ERROR, OR NOT PLAYED 
TO A TRICK. 

67. If the third hand play before the second, 
the fourth hand may play before his partner. 

68. Should the third hand not have played, 
and the fourth play before his partner, the latter 
may be called on to win, or not to win, the trick. 

69. If any one omit playing to a former trick, 
and such error be not discovered until he has 
played to the next, the adversaries may claim a 
new deal; should they decide that the deal stand 
good, the surplus card at the end of the hand is 



THE REVOKE. 27 

considered to have been played to the imperfect 
trick, but does not constitute a revoke therein. 

70. If any one play two cards to the same 
trick, or mix his trump, or other card, with a 
trick to which it does not properly belong, and 
the mistake be not discovered until the hand is 
played out, he is answerable for all consequent 
revokes he may have made. If, during the play 
of the hand, the error be detected, the tricks may 
be counted face downwards, in order to ascer- 
tain whether there be among them a card too 
many; should this be the case, they may be 
searched, and the card restored; the player is, 
however, liable for all revokes which he may have 
meanwhile made. 



THE REVOKE 

71. Is when a player, holding one or more cards 
of the suit led, plays a card of a different suit. 

72. The penalty for a revoke — 

I. Is at the option of the adversaries, who at 
the end of the hand may either take three tricks 
from the revoking player, or deduct three points 
from his score, or add three to their own score ; 

II. Can be claimed for as many revokes as 
occur during the hand ; 



28 THE LAWS OF SHORT WHIST. 

III. Is applicable only to the score of the 
game in which it occurs ; 

IV. Cannot be divided; i.e. a player cannot 
add one or two to his own score and deduct one 
or two from the revoking player ; 

V. Takes precedence of every other score; 
e.g. the claimants two, their opponents nothing; 
the former add three to their score, and thereby 
win a treble game, even should the latter have 
made thirteen tricks and held four honors. 

73. A revoke is established if the trick in 
which it occur be turned and quitted, i.e. the 
hand removed from that trick after it has been 
turned face downwards on the table, or if either 
the revoking player or his partner, whether in 
his right turn or otherwise, lead or play to the 
following trick. 

74. A player may ask his partner whether he 
has not a card of the suit which he has renounced; 
should the question be asked before the trick 
is turned and quitted, subsequent turning and 
quitting does not establish the revoke, and the 
error may be corrected, unless the question be 
answered in the negative, or unless the revoking 
player or his partner have led or played to the 
following trick. 



THE REVOKE. 29 

75. At the end of the hand, the claimants of 
a revoke may search all the tricks. 

76. If a player discover his mistake in time 
to save a revoke, the adversaries, whenever they 
think fit, may call the card thus played in error, 
or may require him to play his highest or lowest 
card to that trick in which he has renounced; 
any player or players who have played after him 
may withdraw their cards and substitute others : 
the cards withdrawn are not liable to be called. 

77. If a revoke be claimed, and the accused 
player or his partner mix the cards before they 
have been sufficiently examined by the adver- 
saries, the revoke is established. The mixing 
of the cards only renders the proof of a revoke 
difficult, but does not prevent the claim and possi- 
ble establishment of the penalty. 

78. A revoke cannot be claimed after the cards 
have been cut for the following deal. 

79. The revoking player and his partner may, 
under all circumstances, require the hand in which 
the revoke has been detected to be played out. 

80. If a revoke occur, be claimed and proved, 
bets* on the odd trick, or on amount of score, 
must be decided by the actual state of the latter, 
after the penalty is paid. 

81. Should the players on both sides subject 



30 THE LAWS OF SHORT WHIST. 

themselves to the penalty of one or more revokes, 
neither can win the game ; each is punished at 
the discretion of his adversary. 

82. In whatever way the penalty be enforced, 
under no circumstances can a player win the 
game by the result of the hand during which he 
has revoked; he cannot score more than four. 
(See Kule 61.) 

CALLING FOR NEW CARDS. 

83. Any player (on paying for them) before, 
but not after, the pack be cut for the deal, may 
call for fresh cards. He must call for two new 
packs, of which the dealer takes his choice. 

GENERAL RULES. 

84. Where a player and his partner have an 
option of exacting from their adversaries one of 
two penalties, they should agree who is to make 
the election, but must not consult with one 
another which of the two penalties it is advisable 
to exact; if they do so consult, they lose their 
right; and if either of them, with or without 
consent of his partner, demand a penalty to which 
he is entitled, such decision is final. 

This ride does not apply in exacting the penal- 



GEXERAL RULES. 31 

ties for a revoke; partners have then a right to 
consult. 

85. Any one during the play of a trick, or 
after the four cards are played, and before — but 
not after — they are touched for the purpose of 
gathering them together, may demand that the 
cards be placed before their respective players. 

86. If any one, prior to his partner playing, 
should call attention to the trick, — either by 
saying that it is his, or by naming his card, or, 
without being required so to do, by drawing it 
towards him, — the adversaries may require that 
opponent's partner to play the highest or lowest 
of the suit then led, or to win or lose the trick. 

87. In all cases where a penalty has been 
incurred, the offender is bound to give reasonable 
time for the decision of his adversaries. 

88. If a bystander make any remark which 
calls the attention of a player or players to an 
oversight affecting the score, he is liable to be 
called on, by the players only, to pay the stakes 
and all bets on that game or rubber. 

89. A bystander, by agreement among the 
players, may decide any question. 

90. A card or cards torn or marked must be 
either replaced by agreement, or new cards called 
at the expense of the table. 



32 THE LAWS OF SHORT WHIST. 

91. Any player may demand to see the last 
trick turned, and no more. Under no circum- 
stances can more than eight cards be seen during 
the play of the hand, viz. : the four cards on the 
table which have not been turned and quitted, 
and the last trick turned. 



ETIQUETTE OF WHIST. 

The following rules belong to the Established 
Etiquette of Whist. They are not called laws, as 
it is 'difficult, in some cases impossible, to apply 
any penalty to their infraction, and the only 
remedy is to cease to play with players who 
habitually disregard them. 

Two packs of cards are invariably used at 
Clubs : if possible this should be adhered to. 

Any one, having the lead and several winning 
cards to play, should not draw a second card out 
of his hand until his partner has played to the 
first trick, such act being a distinct intimation 
that the former has played a winning card. 

No intimation whatever, by word or gesture, 
should be given by a player as to the state of 
his hand, or of the «:ame. 



DUMMY. 33 

A player who desires the cards to be placed, or 
who demands to see the last trick, should do it 
for his own information only, and not in order 
to invite the attention of his partner. 

No player should object to refer to a bystander 
who professes himself uninterested in the game, 
and able to decide any disputed question of facts, 
as to who played any particular card — whether 
honors were claimed though not scored, or vice 
versa, — &c. &c. 

It is unfair to revoke purposely ) having made 
a revoke, a player is not justified in making a 
second in order to conceal the first. 

Until the players have made such bets as they 
wish, bets should not be made with bystanders. 

Bystanders should make no remark, neither 
should they by word or gesture give any inti- 
mation of the state of the game until concluded 
and scored, nor should they walk round the table 
to look at the different hands. 

No one should look over the hand of a player 
against whom he is betting. 

DUMMY 

Is played by three players. 

One hand, called Dummy's, lies exposed on 

the table. 

3 



34 THE LAWS OF SHORT WHIST. 

The laws are the same as those of Whist, with 
the following exceptions : — 

I. Dummy deals at the commencement of each 
rubber. 

II. Dummy is not liable to the penalty for a 
revoke, as his adversaries see his cards : should 
he revoke and the error not be discovered until 
the trick is turned and quitted, it stands good. 

III. Dummy being blind and deaf, his partner 
is not liable to any penalty for an error whence 
he can gain no advantage. Thus, he may expose 
some, or all of his cards, or may declare that he 
has the game, or trick, &c, without incurring 
any penalty ; if, however, he lead from Dummy's 
hand when he should lead from his own, or vice 
versa, a suit may be called from the hand which 
ought to have led. 

DOUBLE DUMMY 

Is played by two players, each having a Dummy 
or exposed hand for his partner. The laws of the 
game do not differ from Dummy "Whist, except in 
the following special law : — There is no misdeal, 
as the deal is a disadvantage. 



A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

By J. C. 



35 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Explanation or Technical Terms 41 

Current Odds at Short Whist 43 

CHAPTER L 

General Advice 44 

Maxims 55 

The Lead 65 

Second Hand 71 

Third Hand 79 

Fourth Hand 83 

Intermediate Sequences 87 

CHAPTER II. 

General Suggestions for Good Players 90 

False Cards 100 

Under-Play 107 

The Finesse 112 

The Finesse Speculative 112 

The Finesse Obligatory 116 

When to Disregard Rule 119 

Le Grand Coup 126 

Great Vienna Coup...,, 131 

39 



40 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER III. page 

Asking for Trumps 132 

CHAPTER IY. 

Principles to Guide Decisions 145 

Cases, and the Decisions of them 146 



EXPLANATION OF TECHNICAL TERMS. 

Ace second, §c. — Ace with one other card. In the 
same way, king second, queen second, &c. With two 
cards we say ace three. With three, ace four, &c. 

Bumper. — A rubber of eight points ; i.e. one in which 
the adversaries have not scored. 

To establish a suit. — To exhaust the best cards in it 
which are against you, and retain its entire command. 

Finesse, or, to .finesse. — To endeavor to take a trick, 
or to keep the command of a suit, by playing, when 
second or third to play, a card lower than some one or 
more cards in your hand, and not in sequence with it 
or them, on the chance that the intermediate card or 
cards may be with your right-hand adversary. 

To force, or, a force. — To play a card which forces 
some player either to trump it, or to lose the trick. 
Thus you force your adversary with a winning card, 
your partner with a losing one. 

Hand. — The thirteen cards held by each player. 
The entire play of all the four hands of each deal is 
also called a hand. 

King-card. — The best card left in each suit is its 
king-card. 

Long trump or trumps. — The last trump or trumps 
left during the play of a hand. 

Leader. — The first to play in each round. 

41 



42 SHORT WHIST. 

Love. — No score. 

Renounce. — Holding none of the suit played, to play 
a card of another suit. 

Revoke. — Holding a card of the suit played, to play 
a card of any other suit. 

Rubber. — The best of three games. 

Ruff, or, to ruff, or, to trump. — To play a trump to a 
suit in which you are wholly deficient. 

Saw or see-saio. — When you and your partner have 
each renounced a different suit, and play alternately 
each the suit which the other trumps. 

Sequences. — Three or more cards in the order of 
their value. A sequence of three cards is called a 
tierce — of four, a quart — of five, a quint — of six, a 
sixieme, and so on. Ace, king, and queen are called 
tierce-major; ace, king, queen, and knave, quart 
major; and so on. Other tierces, quarts, &c, are 
called after the card which heads them, as a tierce, 
quart, &c. to a king or to a queen, &c. 

Singleton. — One card only in a suit. 

Slam. — The making every trick. 

Tenace. — The best and third best card left in any 
suit, as ace and queen, which is the major tenace. If 
both these cards have been played, the king and knave 
become the tenace in the suit, and so on. 

Trumps. — The suit to which the turned-up card 
belongs. 

Underplay. — See page 107. 



CURRENT ODDS. 43 



CURRENT ODDS AT SHORT WHIST. 

At the commencement of the game or rubber, it is 
5 to 4 on the dealer for the game, and 6 to 5 on him 
for the rubber, either bet being slightly better to take 
than to lay. 

1 to love with the deal is 11 to 8 on the game, and 5 
to 4 on the rubber ; the deal being against, the betting 
on either game or rubber is even. 

2 to love with the deal is 13 to 8 for the game. The 
deal being against, it is 11 to 8. For the rubber, with 
the deal, it is 3 to 2. The deal being against, 11 to 8. 

3 to love, or 4 to love, with the deal is 2 to 1 on the 
game. The deal being against, it is 15 to 8. In this 
case, the odds on the rubber are the same as those on 
the game. 

The first game being won, if the deal for the second 
game were in abeyance, the exact odds on the winner 
for the rubber would be 3 to 1. The current odds are, 
however, 5 to 2 ; but it is as good a bet to lay 3 to 1 
with the deal, as 5 to 2 against it. 

The first game, and 1 to love of the second, with the 
deal is 7 to 3. The deal being against, it is 3 to 1. 

The first game, and 2 to love of the second, with the 
deal, is 7 to 2, and is an advantageous bet to lay. The 
deal being against, the odds can scarcely be called less, 
but they are not disadvantageous to take. 

The first game, and 3 or 4 to love of the second, 
with the deal or against it, is 4 to 1. No higher odds 
than these are ever given at any stage of the rubber, 



44 CURRENT ODDS. 

unless an honor lias been turned up by the winners of 
the first game, and of the first 3 or 4 points of the 
second game, when 5 to 1 may be laid. The 4 to 1 bet, 
however, is advantageous to lay with the deal, and not 
disadvantageous against it. 

The deal against the first point is an even bet for 
the game or rubber. 

It is an even bet that the dealer has two points, or 
more. For the purpose of this bet it is held that the 
dealer has two points, although he may not be able to 
score them; i.e. the bet is won if the dealer and his 
partner hold two by honors, although, the adversaries 
being game by tricks, such honors are not scored. 
This bet is very slightly in favor of the layer. 

The foregoing odds, though, for the convenience of 
betters, they are not exactly calculated, are as near 
an approximation to the exact calculations as can be 
given without going to fractions or getting into very 
high figures. 



TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 



CHAPTER I. 



ADVICE, MAXIMS, AND RULES FOR 
BEGINNERS. 

"How am I to learn whist?" is a question 
which must often have been addressed to every 
good whist-player, and which he, in all proba- 
bility, has not found easy to answer; for almost 
all the works of any value on this game treat of 
the old game, long whist, partly because it is the 
old game, partly because it is said to require more 
skill than the modern, or short whist. I shall 
not stay to consider whether this is so or not. It 
is enough for me that the old game is dead, and 
the modern in full vigor, in spite of at least one 
very glaring defect, — the undue value of the 
honors, which are pure luck, as compared with 

45 



46 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

that of the tricks, which greatly depend on skill. 
Short whist bears this mark of its hasty and acci- 
dental origin. If the change had been carefully 
considered, the honors would have been cut in 
half, as well as the points. Two by honors would 
have counted one point. Four by honors would 
have counted two. Had this been so, the game 
would be perfect; but the advantage of skill 
would be so great as to limit considerably the 
number of players. Some eighty years back, 
Lord Peterborough having one night lost a large 
sum of money, the friends with whom he was 
playing proposed to make the game five points 
instead of ten, in order to give the loser a chance, 
at a quicker game, of recovering his loss. The 
late Mr. Hoare, of Bath, a very good whist-player, 
and without a superior at piquet, was one of this 
party, and has more than once told me the story. 
The new game was found to be so lively, and 
money changed hands with such increased 
rapidity, that these gentlemen and their friends, 
all of them leading members of the clubs of the 
day, continued to play it. It became general in 
the clubs, thence was introduced to private 
houses, travelled into the country, went to Paris, 
and has long since so entirely superseded the 
whist of Hoyle's day, that of short whist alone I 



ADVICE, MAXIMS, ETC. 47 

propose to treat. I shall thus at least spare to 
iny reader the learning much in the old works 
that it is not necessary for him to know, and not 
a little which, if learned, should be at once for- 
gotten. 

"How am I to learn whist?" I will tell you 
how I learned it myself. Like most beginners, I 
looked on whist for a considerable time as a bad 
game of chance, and at last became tired of being 
the undoubted muff of my party. I was con- 
stantly told, u You knew I had the best heart;" 
or, "We only wanted three tricks. Why did you 
not play your ace of clubs, when you knew me 
with the two last trumps V Or again : " You knew 
every card in my hand/' and such like observa- 
tions. It is true, I was perfectly innocent of the 
knowledge imputed to me; but I took it for 
granted that, when gentlemen of good sense and 
good character assured me so frequently of my 
intimate knowledge of their hands, that at least 
I ought to know them, and that there must be 
some way of acquiring the information. I set to 
work to find it out, and was surprised at its sim- 
plicity. Whist is a language, and every card 
played an intelligible sentence. 

I am addressing beginners only, yet may give 
them credit for knowing that which is self-evi- 



48 A TREATISE OX SHORT WHIST. 

dent, viz., that, having no pretension to take a 
trick, it is right to play the least valuable card in 
the suit, the deuce of course, if in the hand, as 
being the most worthless card. Also, I suppose 
them to know that in leading from an ace-king, 
or a king-queen suit, not being trumps, it is right 
to lead the king. Starting with this small stock 
of knowledge, let us look at the first round of a 
hand. We will take a very probable one, and let 
us see how much of the language of whist we 
already understand. I will distinguish the play- 
ers by the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4. 

1. Having an ace-king suit, leads the king. 
Thus, if an adversary trumps the first round, or 
the leader sees cause to change his lead, it is clear 
that he probably holds the ace. Had he played 
his ace, he would have given no indication of the 
position of the king. 

2. Plays the four. 

3. Plays the six. 

4. Plays the eight. 

Let us put this into words. 

1. Having made the trick, says, "I either hold 
the ace, or I hold the queen; in which case my 
partner holds the ace, or my king would not have 
been permitted to make the trick. It may be 
that I hold all three, — ace, king, and queen." 



ADVICE, MAXIMS, ETC. 49 

2. Says, "I do not hold the deuce or the three; 
otherwise I should not have played the four/' 

3. Says, "I do not hold the* deuce, the three, 
or the five; otherwise I should not have played 
the six." 

4. Says, "I do not hold the deuce, the three, 
the five, or the, seven; otherwise I should not have 
played the eight." 

Three players having told us that they do not 
hold the deuce, or the three, it is clear that these 
two cards are in the hand of" the leader. For a 
similar reason it is also clear that the five is either 
with the leader or the second player, and that the 
seven is with the leader, or with the second or 
third player. 

I have treated these indications as infallible; 
but it may be that the ace of the suit has been 
held back by an adversary. It is rarely good 
play to do so, but it is very possible that it has 
been so, or one of the players may have asked for 
trumps. (See Chapter on "Asking for Trumps.") 
In either of these cases, the second round of the 
suit will undeceive you. Some player also may 
in carelessness have played a wrong card. But I 
put this supposition aside, as the only safe plan is 
to consider that cards, especially in such an in- 
4 



50 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

significant case as this, are regularly played, ac- 
cording to the known rules of the game. 

Let us now pursue our suit. The leader, 
having won the first trick with his king, leads 
the ace. 

2. Plays the five. 

3. Plays the queen. 

4. Plays the knave. 

We have ascertained that no player has asked 
for trumps, and one suit is already pretty well 
known to us. The third and the fourth players 
have no more of it, and its remaining cards are 
with the leader and the second player. 

We will suppose that the leader's suit was 
originally ace, king, ten, three, and deuce; he 
still holds, therefore, the ten, three, and deuce, 
which the second player knows as well as himself, 
while he knows that the second player must hold 
the two remaining cards, viz., the nine and the 
seven. If the leader plays his ten, it is true that 
he will force his right-hand adversary, and give 
his partner an opportunity, by throwing away a 
losing card, of indicating the suit which he wishes 
not to be led, and this may be of great advantage; 
but, on the other hand, he will leave the second 
player with the best card of the suit, the nine, 
hereafter to be played, it may be, with fatal effect. 



ADVICE, MAXIMS, ETC. 51 

On such considerations, on such balance of ad- 
vantage and disadvantage, the good player regu- 
lates his play; and, as the game goes on, each 
trick being full of information to the careful ob- 
server, by the time that the hand is half played 
out he arrives at a pretty accurate idea of the 
broad features of each hand; and when but three 
or four cards remain to each player, he very fre- 
quently knows almost to a card where they are 
to be found, arriving at this knowledge as much 
by having observed the cards which each player 
cannot possibly hold as by those the position of 
which during the play has been plainly indicated. 
A beginner may object to my illustration that 
it is too much to expect from his unpractised 
memory and observation that he should com- 
mence by observing the deuces and the threes. 
So it is. I chose my illustration as one which 
tolerably explained my meaning, but do not ad- 
vise him to puzzle himself at first, if he finds 
that it does puzzle him, by straining his memory 
about the small cards. Let him content himself 
at first by carefully observing the broad indica- 
tions of the game, such as the different leads, 
whether strong or weak, the invitation to lead a 
trump, the cards thrown away, &c, all which I 
hope to explain to him as I go on. With care, 



52 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

and with his eyes never wandering from the 
table, each day will add to the indications which 
he will observe and understand. He will find 
that mere memory has less to do with whist than 
he imagines, — that it matters little whether the 
five or the six is the best card left of a suit, as 
long as he knows, which he generally ought to 
know, who has that best card. Memory and ob- 
servation will become mechanical to him, and cost 
him little effort; and all that remains for him to 
do will be to calculate at his ease the best way of 
playing his own and his partner's hands, — in many 
cases as if he saw the greater portion of the cards 
laid face upwards on the table. He will then be 
a fine whist-player. 

Talking over the hand after it has been played 
is not uncommonly called a bad habit and an 
annoyance. I am firmly persuaded that it is 
among the readiest ways of learning whist; and I 
advise beginners, when they have not understood 
their partner's play, or when they think that the 
hand might have been differently played with a 
better result, to ask for information and invite 
discussion. They will of course select for this 
purpose a player of recognized skill, and will 
have little difficulty in distinguishing the dis- 
passionate and reasoning man from him who 



ADVICE, MAXIMS, ETC 53 

judges by results, and finds fault only because 
things have gone wrong. They will rarely find 
a real whist-player so discourteous as to refuse 
every information in his power; for he takes 
interest in the beginner who is anxious to im- 
prove. 

Much is also to be learned by looking over 
good players, who will generally be willing to ex- 
plain the reasons for their play 5 but the learner 
should only look over one hand, which he should 
follow carefully, as if he were himself playing it. 

I will now endeavor to reduce to maxims or 
rules the points to which a beginner should 
chiefly direct his attention, begging him to re- 
member that, as they are observed by all mode- 
rately good players, most of them furnish those 
indications as to the position of the cards to 
which I especially invite his consideration, and 
an observation of which, more than any thing else, 
will help him to become an accomplished whist- 
player. 

He must not be discouraged if he not unfre- 
quently loses by his obedience to rules; for good 
play and bad play do not mean that the one must 
win and the other must lose. Let us suppose 
that he doubts between playing two cards, — call 
them the ace of clubs and the ace of spades, — 



54 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

and that by calculation it is six to four in favor 
of playing the ace of clubs. If he plays it, he 
plays right; if he plays the ace of spades, he 
plays very badly; yet, if the calculation is cor- 
rect, he will gain four times out of ten by playing 
what is called, and what is according to proba- 
bility, the wrong card. He may be contented, 
however, by gaining the remaining six chances, 
and this proportion will bring him through tri- 
umphantly in the long run. 

Lastly, although the following rules may oc- 
casionally speak of things to be never done and 
others to be always done, he must remember that 
no rules are without an exception, and few more 
open to exceptional cases than rules for whist. 
But he has not yet arrived at the exceptions. 
Let him play for a time, it may be a year, rigidly 
according to rule, and he will then be in a posi- 
tion to seize the occasions on which rule should 
be departed from. In the mean time he will have 
amused himself to little, if any, disadvantage; and 
the fine player will scarcely have asked for a 
better partner than one who, by careful attention 
to rule, has given to him every possible indication 
of the position of the cards, and has enabled him, 
so to speak, to play twenty-six cards instead of 
thirteen. 



ADVICE, MAXIMS, ETC. 55 

MAXIMS. 

Count your cards before playing to the first 
trick. 

Carefully study your hand when you take it up, 
and consider the score of the game, as it is use- 
less to scheme for two or three tricks if you only 
require one, or to make the odd trick only at the 
score of one or three, if your adversaries pro- 
bably hold honors which will make them the 
game. Having done this, keep your eyes con- 
stantly on the table, never looking at your hand 
except when it is your turn to play. No one 
can become even a moderately good whist-player 
whose attention is not constantly given to the 
table. 

Avoid getting into any particular habit of 
sorting your cards, such as always putting your 
trumps in the same place, &c. Players of no 
great delicacy may easily gain from your pecu- 
liarities some indication of your strength; and 
even the most loyal may find difficulty in not 
noticing them, and being somewhat influenced 
by the information which they have unintention- 
ally acquired. 

Be sure to remember the trump card, however 
low its value. 



56 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

When your partner renounces a suit, never fail 
to ask hini whether he is sure that he has none 
of it. If he revokes, and you have neglected 
this precaution, the fault is as much yours as it is 
his. 

If you have omitted to notice how the cards 
fell to a trick, ask that they be placed. 

Endeavor to remember as many of the cards 
played as you can. They will in time all dwell 
on your memory; but you must begin by at least 
knowing all the chief cards which have been 
played, and by whom, in each suit. It is, how- 
ever, still more important, and will greatly aid 
your memory, to observe with whom the strength 
in each suit probably lies. At this knowledge you 
may generally arrive thus : in all the first leads 
of the different suits, but especially in those of 
your partner, compare the card led with those of 
the suit which you hold, and those which are 
played to the first round, in order to ascertain 
whether the leader has led from a strong or from 
a weak suit. To make this calculation you must 
remember, — 

1st. That strong suits, with the exception of a 
king, knave, ten suit, are led either from, their 
highest or lowest card, and not from a middle 
card. From the highest card, unless the ace, 



ADVICE, MAXIMS, ETC. 57 

only when the suit is headed by two or more 
cards of equal value. 

2d. That, with a suit of two or three weak 
cards, it is right to lead the highest. 

Bear this in your mind. Your partner leads, 
say, the six : you have the seven, eight, ten, and 
queen. If this is his strong suit, and if, conse- 
quently, the six is the lowest of four cards, his 
other three cards must be the nine, knave, with 
king or ace. You finesse your ten; for, if your 
partner is strong, your ten, he holding the knave, 
is as good as your queen. If he is weak, you are 
right to protect your suit as well as you can, and 
finesse against the knave. If your ten is taken 
by the knave, all doubt is at an end : your part- 
ner has led from a weak suit. He has not the 
knave, therefore the six cannot be the lowest of 
four cards, and it is, almost to a certainty, the 
highest of two or three small cards. I say 
" almost to a certainty," because it is possible 
that he may have led from six, nine, with king 
or ace. But I am speaking of an original lead; 
and such a suit would be so bad a lead that you 
would very rarely find it from a good player. In 
illustration of the meaning of my advice to com- 
pare the first card led in a suit with the cards 
which you held in it and the first round played, 



58 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST 

I have taken a tolerably obvious case; but the 
habit of this comparison will speedily enable you 
to distinguish, four times out of five, the weak 
from* the strong lead. 

Short of some unfailing indication such as the 
foregoing, take it for granted if your partner 
is a good player that his first lead is from his 
strongest suit. 

If your partner refuses to trump a certain 
winning card, lead him a trump as soon as you 
get the lead ; and, if necessary, run some risk to 
get it. If, however, you are yourself strong in 
trumps, bear in mind that he may not improbably 
have no trump at all, — in which case you must 
make the best of your own hand. If he has re- 
fused to trump from strength, you ought to have 
the game between you. 

Observe the score of the game and play to it, — 
not trying to make two tricks when one is enough, 
or fearing to run a necessary risk to make the 
number of tricks required to save or win the 
game. To illustrate the meaning of " playing to 
the score/' take the following case : You have 
the lead, and four cards in your hand, two small 
trumps, two better being left in against you, and 
two winning cards. You want two tricks to save 
the game. Play one of your winning cards, and 



ADVICE, MAXIMS, ETC 59 

if it is not trumped play the other. Your game 
is saved. So that you do not play a trump, you 
must make two tricks ; but if, in order to save 
the game, it is necessary to make three tricks, 
you have but one chance, viz., to play a trump: 
and if the two trumps against you are in differ- 
ent hands, they fall together, and your three 
tricks are made. If the two trumps against you 
are in the same hand, the game is lost in whatever 
way you play it. 

Do not force your partner unless you hold four 
trumps, one of them being an honor, — unless to 
secure a double ruff, which you have the means 
of making as obvious to him as it is to yourself. 

Or to make sure of the tricks required to save 
or win the game. 

Or unless he has already been forced and has 
not led a trump. 

Or unless he has asked to be forced by leading 
from a single card or two weak cards. 

Or unless the adversary has led or asked for 
trumps. 

This last exception is the slightest of the 
justifications for forcing your partner when you 
are weak in trumps; but it is in most cases a suffi- 
cient apology. 

It follows from the above that there can be but 



60 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

few whist offences more heinous than forcing 
your partner, when he has led a trump, and you 
are yourself not very strong in them. To justify 
your force, when he has led a trump from strength, 
you should be able to answer for winning the 
game, unless this should be the only way in which 
you can give him the lead. 

Do not give away a certain trick by refusing 
to ruff, or otherwise, unless you see a fair chance 
of making two tricks at least by your forbear- 
ance. 

Lead through strong suits and up to the weak 
suits, — the latter being generally the better thing 
to do. 

Let the first card you throw away be from your 
weakest suit. Your partner will take this as if 
you said to him, "Do not lead this suit unless 
you have great strength in it yourself/' The ob- 
servance of this is so important that in the great 
majority of hands, especially when you hold a 
very strong suit, you should prefer to unguard a 
king or a queen rather than deceive your partner 
as to the suit you wish him to lead. 

It is less dangerous generally to unguard a 
king than a queen. Unless the ace of the suit is 
led out, or lies with your left-hand adversary, — 
and even in this case, if he leads a small card of 



ADVICE, MAXIMS, ETC 61 

the suit, — you will make your king without his 
guard. If, from fear of unguarding your king, 
you have deceived your partner as to your strong 
suit, he will of course lead the suit from which 
you have not thrown away; and in this case, if 
the ace is to your left, your king falls, and the 
guard, which you unwisely kept, is of no service. 
In like manner remember that the card first 
thrown away by your partner is from his weakest 
suit, and do not lead it unless it is an advan- 
tageous lead for your own hand, even in the event 
of his having no one strong card in it. He has 
told you that you must expect nothing from him 
in this suit • and, should you find him with some 
little strength in it. you may be pretty sure that 
he is stronger still in the other suits. 

This indication should be a most valuable guide 
to you in the play of the rest of the hand. 

Never play false cards. The habit, to which 
there are many temptations, of trying to deceive 
your adversaries as to the state of your hand, de- 
ceives your partner as well and destroys his con- 
fidence in you. A golden maxim for whist is, 
that it is of more importance to inform your 
partner than to deceive your adversary. The 
best whist-player is he who plays the game in 
the simplest and most intelligible way. 



62 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

Keep the commanding card, or the second best 
guarded of your adversary's suit, as long as it is 
safe to do so; but be careful of keeping the com- 
manding card single of your partner's, lest you 
should be obliged to stop his suit. 

With four trumps do not trump an uncertain 
card, i.e. one which your partner may be able to 
win. With less than four trumps and no honor, 
trump an uncertain card. 

With a weak hand, seek every opportunity of 
forcing your adversary. It is a common and fatal 
mistake to abandon your strong suit because you 
see that your adversary will trump it. Above all, 
if he refuses to trump, make him, if you can; and 
remember that when you are not strong enough 
to lead a trump, you are weak enough to force 
your adversary. 

Be careful, however, of leading a card of a suit 
of which neither adversary has one. The weaker 
will trump, and the stronger will take the oppor- 
tunity of throwing away a losing card, if he has 
one. 

Let your first lead be from your strongest suit. 

The strongest leads are from suits headed with 
ace, king, or king and queen, or from sequences. 

In leading from two cards of equal value, — say 
king and queen, or from a sequence, — lead the 



ADVICE, MAXIMS, ETC. 63 

highest; but when not the leader, take, or try to 
take, the trick with the lowest. 

If, however, you have five cards in a suit, with 
a tierce or a quart to a king, it is well to lead the 
lowest of the sequence in order to get the ace out 
of your partner's hand, if he has it, and thus re- 
tain yourself the full command of the suit. It 
is wrong, though frequently done, to lead the 
knave from a tierce to a king, unless you have at 
least five cards of the suit; as, if either of your 
adversaries holds the ten and three small cards, 
he will be left with the ten, the best of the suit 
after three rounds, if your partner, having the 
ace, has played it on your knave. 

Return your partner's lead when you have not 
good suits of your own. 

When you return your partner's lead, if you 
held originally four or more cards in his suit, re- 
turn to him the lowest of those left to you. If 
you held originally but three of his suit, return 
to him the highest. Thus with ace, ten, three, 
and deuce, you should take with the ace and re- 
turn the deuce. With ace, ten, and deuce only, 
you take with the ace, and return to him the ten. 

The foregoing is, of all similar rules, to my 
mind the most important for the observance of 
whist-players. It proceeds on the theory that, 



64 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

if you have four cards of a suit, you are strong 
enough, in it to husband your own strength; 
whereas, if you have but three, you will do best 
to throw such strength as you have into your 
partner's hand. But careful attention to this 
rule has a much more important significance. It 
assists your partner to count your hand. You 
take the first trick in the suit which he leads, 
say, with the ace, and you return the ten. He is 
sure that you hold either no more, or only one 
more of the suit; and when to the third round 
you play a low card, he knows that you have no 
more. You would not have returned the ten if 
you had held originally four cards in the suit. 
Again, if you retur» to him, say, the deuce, and 
to the third round play a higher card, he knows 
that you have still a card left in his suit, because, 
if you had originally held only three cards in his 
suit, you would have returned to him the higher 
of the two left in your hand, and not the deuce. 
The importance of the knowledge which you have 
enabled him to acquire is scarcely to be over- 
rated. In trumps, for instance, when he holds 
one, with only one other left against him, he will 
very frequently know, as surely as if he looked 
into your hand, whether that other trump is held 
by you or by an adversary. It follows from the 



THE LEAD. 65 

above that you should not fail to remark the card 
in your own lead which your partner returns to 
you, and whether that which he plays to the third 
round is higher or lower than that which he re- 
turned. 

THE LEAD. 

In leading from two cards, lead the higher. A 
lead from a queen or knave and one small card is 
not objectionable, if you have a miserably weak 
hand, or one in which all the other suits are 
manifestly disadvantageous : your queen or knave 
may be valuable to your partner. But the lead 
from king and one small card can hardly ever be 
forced on you, and is only justifiable when your 
partner has indicated by the cards he has thrown 
away that this is his strong suit; or when, to 
save or win the game, it is clear that he must be 
strong in the suit. The ace and one small card 
can also scarcely ever be an advantageous lead 
unless under similar circumstances. 

In leading from three cards, lead the highest. 
Avoid, however, leading from the king or the 
queen with two small cards of the suit. The 
cases are very rare when either of these leads 
can be forced on you. With nothing else to do, 
and without any indication from your partner, 



GG A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

you will be right to lead the lowest card; but 
when he has shown you that this is his strongest 
suit, you will generally be right in leading the 
highest. Avoid, also, leading from king, queen, 
and one small card. If this suit is led elsewhere, 
you will generally make both your king and your 
queen, unless the ace is to your left, and some- 
times even then. Whereas, if you lead the suit, 
and the ace is against you, you can only make 
one trick. 

A lead from queen, knave, and one small card, 
or knave, ten, and one small card, is not bad 
when you have no better suit. 

The lead from ace and two small cards is rarely 
advisable. The ace is better kept to bring in 
your strong suit. If forced on you, the lead is 
from the lowest card. 

From king, queen, with two or more small 
cards of the suit, not being trumps, lead the 
king. In trumps, lead the lowest card. 

From queen, knave, and two or more small 
cards, or from knave, ten, and two or more small 
cards, lead the lowest. 

Hoyle advises that, when with queen, knave, 
and others, you hold the nine ; or, with knave, 
ten, and others, the eight; or with ten, nine, and 
others, the seven, &c,, you should lead your high- 



THE LEAD. 67 

est in order to finesse your nine, or your eight, 
&c, as the case may be, on the return of your 
lead; and this was the old system. It is now, 
however, generally abandoned as disadvantageous 
at short whist, and I doubt its being generally 
right at the long game. 

If, however, the game is in such a position as 
to oblige you to win every trick in the suit, your 
best chance will be, having the suits I have de- 
scribed, to lead the highest card. 

With an honor and three or more small cards, 
lead the highest card. 

"With four, five, or more small cards, lead the 
lowest, unless they are headed by a sequence. 

With any number of cards in a suit, not being 
trumps, headed by ace and king, lead your king 
and, unless you see cause to change your lead, 
continue with the ace. If you are obliged to 
change your lead, your partner will thus know 
that in all probability you hold the ace. Had 
you played the ace he would have had no know- 
ledge of the position of the king. 

In like manner with tierce major or quart 
major of a suit, lead your king and follow with 
the queen, thus always keeping your partner in 
the knowledge of the position of the ace. With 
an ace, king suit, however, if you are strong in 



08 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

trumps, and if the other suits are exhausted, or 
if you have no chance of making tricks in them, 
you will not unfrequently be right in leading a 
small card, — the more so if your right-hand ad- 
versary has thrown from the suit. 

With ace and three small cards, lead the 
lowest. 

With ace and four small cards, lead the ace, 
and follow with the lowest. 

The foregoing two rules are in accordance with 
long-established English practice, from which, 
however, the players of the Paris Clubs dissent, 
and from ace and three small cards play out the 
ace, as we do from ace and four or more small 
cards. The increased intercourse of late years 
between London and Paris, leading in many 
other things to an assimilation of fashions, has 
induced some players to adopt in this respect the 
Paris system, and has introduced some confusion 
into our best whist-parties. Formerly, if a player 
led an ace and then a small card of a suit, you 
felt sure that he had led either from ace and one 
small card, or from ace and four or more small 
cards of the suit. You of course soon ascer- 
tained which : you made your calculations and 
counted the cards in his fcand accordingly. But 
you are no longer safe in feeling sure that the 



THE LEAD. 69 

lead is not from ace and three small cards. Your 
friend may have taken to French fashions, and 
you will do well carefully to observe these eccen- 
tricities and lay your account for the probability 
of their occurrence on a future occasion. I ad- 
vise adherence to the old rule as given above. I 
believe it to be right ; and feel at least sure that, 
right or wrong, it is good policy to observe it, in 
order not to mislead your partner, until it is 
shown to be wrong and generally discontinued. 

The lead from king, knave, ten, and others is 
exceptional. It is the only case of leading a 
middle card, and the practice is to lead the ten. 
With so strong a suit you cannot afford to give a 
trick to any thing less than the ace or queen ; and 
the ten is chosen, instead of the knave, as the 
card to lead, in order to distinguish this from the 
lead from a knave ten suit. Here, again, Paris 
play differs from ours ; and, though the ten is led 
in other suits, the knave is led in trumps. Here, 
again, also, some few English players create con- 
fusion by following, the French fashion. It may 
be right : there is little real difference in the two 
systems 5 but, as long as our practice remains what 
it is and what it has always been, the knave, 
from king, knave, ten, and others in trumps, is 



70 A TREATISE OX SHORT WHIST 

as wrong a card to play in England as, from the 
same suit, the ten would be in France. 

With ace, king, and others in trumps, lead the 
lowest card, unless you have seven cards of the 
suit. This will be almost always right when you 
have not scored, and generally as the first lead of 
the hand at any score. Later in the hand many 
circumstances may make it right to secure two 
rounds of trumps. 

The lead from a single card is very generally 
condemned as an original lead; and as a habit 
it is very bad, though not unfrequent. The 
player who generally leads from a single card, if 
he happens to have one, is always suspected and 
speedily found out. His partner never knows 
what he is to expect from him, and probably, 
being strong in trumps, draws the trumps, returns 
what he has reason to believe to be his partner's 
strong suit, and finds him with none of it ; or, it 
may be, suspecting the usual singleton, he dares 
not play a trump when he otherwise would have 
done so. This habit is destructive of all confi- 
dence, frequently helps to establish your adver- 
sary's strong suit, and is likely to mislead and 
sacrifice your partner. 



SECOXD IIAXD. 71 



SECOND HAND. 



Playing high cards when second to play, unless 
your suit is headed by two or more high cards of 
equal value, or unless to cover a high card, is to 
be carefully avoided. 

With two or three cards of the suit played, 
cover a high card. Play a king, or a queen, on a 
knave, or ten. &c. 

With four cards, or more, of the suit played, 
do not cover, unless the second best of your suit 
is also a valuable card. Thus, with a king or 
queen and three or more small cards, do not 
cover a high card ; but if, along with your king 
or queen, you hold the ten, or even the nine, 
cover a queen or a knave. 

With king and another, not being trumps, do 
not play your king, unless to cover a high card. 

With king and another, being trumps, play 
your king. 

With queen and another, whether trumps or 
not, play your small card, unless to cover. 

With knave and one small card, or with ten 
and one small card, or with nine and one small 
card, play the small card, unless to cover. 

With two cards of less value than the fore^ 
going, play the smaller. 



72 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

With king, queen, and one or more small cards, 
play the queen, the suit not being trumps. 

In trumps, if along with your king and queen 
you hold two or more small cards, you may fre- 
quently venture to pass the trick, and give to 
your partner a chance of making it, when you 
have reason to believe that your adversary has 
led from strength. If his partner, however, has 
asked for trumps, or if the card led indicates 
weakness in the leader, play your queen. 

With queen, knave, and one small card, play 
the knave. 

With queen, knave, and two or more small 
cards, play the lowest. 

With knave, ten, and one small card, play the 
ten. 

With knave, ten, and two or more small cards, 
play the lowest. 

With ten, nine, and one small card, play the 
nine. 

With ten, nine, and two or more small cards, 
play the lowest. 

With other cards of lower value than the fore- 
going, play the lowest. 

With ace, queen, and others, play the lowest 
when you have reason to believe that your adver- 
sary has led from his strong suit • but if it is ob- 



1 



SECOXD HAXD. 73 

vious that he has led the best card of a weak 
suit, put on your ace, and, if you wish to establish 
that suit, at once continue it with your smallest 
card. Thus, if the card led is the knave, you 
are sure that it is the best card which the leader 
holds in that suit ; and if you do not play your 
ace. you may lose it by its being trumped. 

If the card led is the ten, there is cause for 
consideration. The ten may be a singleton, or 
the highest of two or three small cards, in which 
case you should play your ace. But it may also 
be the recognized card to lead from a king, 
knave, ten suit, in which case of course the 
queen is the card to play. A nine, or even an 
eight, if you do not yourself hold the nine, may 
expose you to somewhat equal difficulty, as the 
one may be a legitimate lead from king, knave, 
ten, nine, and the other from king, knave, ten, 
nine, and eight. 

In this difficulty you must calculate as well as 
you can whether the card led is from a strong or 
a weak suit, and play accordingly your ace, your 
queen, or your lowest card. Xor will you ever be 
without some means of forming your calculation. 
If the leader is a good player, and this his origi- 
nal lead, take it for granted that it is his strong 
suit, and play your queen. A good player almost 






74 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

always originally leads his strongest suit. If the 
leader's partner has thrown from this suit, thereby 
indicating that it is his weakest, believe it to be 
the leader's strong suit. He will not have led it, 
after his partner's indication, unless he is very 
strong in it ; and you may feel pretty sure that his 
ten is led from king, knave, ten, and others. But 
if this is a forced lead, and the leader has pre- 
viously led another suit, and that not one of com- 
manding strength, you may be almost certain that 
his new lead is a weak suit, and that he has led 
his best card in it; if not, and he had held a 
king, knave, ten suit, he would have led it in pre- 
ference to that which he did lead. Again, if 
this lead occurs late in the play of the hand, it is 
probable that you know so many cards which 
must be in the leader's hand as to be sure that 
there is no room left in it for this to be a strong 
suit. By such considerations as these you must 
be guided. They will sometimes lead you wrong ; 
more frequently they will be almost unfailing 
indications ; but, however this may be, you must 
make the best of them, as it is impossible to 
frame a rule which shall be a sure guide what 
card to play, second hand, on a ten, or a nine, 
when you yourself hold ace, queen, and others. 
With ace, queen, ten, alone or with others, play 



SECOXD HAXD. 75 

the queen. If you lose her to the king, you still 
have the tenace over the original leader. 

With ace, queen, knave, or with ace, queen, 
knave, ten, &c. play the lowest of the equal 
cards. 

With ace, king, knave, play the king. The 
second round in the suit will tell you whether 
the lead was from strength or weakness, and you 
will finesse your knave, or not, accordingly. 

With ace, king, and others, not being trumps, 
play the king. In trumps, unless the leader has 
led from weakness, you may safely play your 
lowest card, and give to your partner the chance 
of making the trick. Nor does a card, led from 
weakness, bar you from doing this, if other con- 
siderations make it advisable. Say that a nine is 
led, it is almost- certain that this is the leader's 
best trump; if his partner holds both queen and 
knave, you probably lose nothing by having 
passed the nine. It may be finessed, and your 
partner may make his ten. But if he holds an 
honor, he will, in all probability, make it, if even 
it is his only card in the suit. 

With ace, knave, ten, and others, not being 
trumps, play your lowest card; your ten would 
be played uselessly, for there is at least one honor 
behind you, cither with the third player, who 



76 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST 

must play it, or with your partner; for if the 
leader had held king and queen he would have 
played the king. In trumps, however, it is fre- 
quently right to play the ten, as in this suit it is 
not improbable that both the other honors are 
with the leader. 

Play an ace on a knave. 

It is generally right to play an ace on a queen. 
If, however, the leader's partner has given you 
cause to believe that this is his weak suit, either 
by throwing it away or otherwise, or if your 
partner, by throwing away from other suits, has 
given you reason to hope that here he may have 
some strength, you may with advantage pass the 
queen, and give to your partner the chance of 
holding the king. It is to be presumed that the 
leader has led from his strong suit, probably from 
a tierce to a queen, with another card. By 
passing the queen, if your partner has the king, 
you still hold the ace behind your adversary 3 
strong suit, which is better than that your partner 
should hold the king to its right hand. For, 
when the lead is returned, the original leader 
must play one of the two remaining cards of his 
tierce in order to draw your ace; whereas, had 
you played your ace on the queen in the first 
round of the suit, on its return your partner 



SECOND HAND. 77 

must play his king, leaving the original leader 
with both the knave and the ten, if he originally 
held four cards in the suit. 

With ace, ten, and another, you may safely 
pass the queen; the best which the leader can 
have is queen, knave, and a small card, and this 
is most probably his strength in the suit. If you 
pass the queen, and your partner has the king, 
the leader makes no trick in his suit, as you are 
behind him with an ace, ten. Your only risk is 
that the queen may be a singleton, or that the 
leaders partner may hold the king single; nor is 
this risk great. 

In the second round of a suit, if you hold the 
winning card, or third best card of such suit, you 
must be guided in your play by the indications 
which the first round will have given you. It 
will be generally right to take the trick, if you 
hold the winning card ; but you may not unfre- 
quently pass the trick, if you feel pretty sure 
that your partner holds the second or third best 
card. 

Thus, you hold ace and two small cards in a 
suit; your right-hand adversary leads a small card, 
you play your lowest, the third player plays the 
knave, and your partner takes the trick with the 
queen. It is pretty clear that your left-hand ad- 



78 A TREATISE OX SHORT WHIST. 

versary does not hold the ten or king; had he 
held either, he would not have played the knave. 
If this suit is led again with a small card, but 
one which is higher than his first, by the same 
leader, and you are thus again second hand, you 
may again with safety play a small card. The 
leader does not hold king and ten, for as these 
have become equal cards, he would have led one 
of them. It is therefore clear that your partner 
holds either the ten or the kiDg, and that, which- 
ever he holds, he can win the trick. 

Again, if you hold in the second round the 
third best card of the suit, you will be sometimes 
right to play it if you have reason to believe that 
your partner holds the winning card, which you 
may thus preserve to him. 

If your suit is a long one, say even four cards, 
you must bear in mind the danger that your 
partner's winning card may be single, and that 
he may be forced to take the trick which is al- 
ready yours. There is also the further risk that, 
believing you to have no more of the suit, he may 
miscalculate your strength and that of the other 
players in the remaining suits. The foregoing is 
therefore an experiment which I cannot recom- 
mend to young players. 



THIRD HAND. 



THIRD HAND. 



The third hand is, as a general rule, expected 
to play his best card to the suit which his partner 
has led, and which, in the case of an original 
lead, is, or, in the vast majority of hands, ought 
to be, his partner's strongest suit. By playing 
your best card, therefore, to your partner's lead, 
if you do not take the trick, you at least assist 
him to establish his strong suit. 

With an ace, queen alone, or with others of the 
suit, it is advisable to finesse your queen; for you 
cannot lose by this mode of play unless in the 
improbable event of the king being single behind 
you. If it is to your right, or held by your part- 
ner, your queen is as good as your ace. 

If you have reason to believe that your part- 
ner's lead is from a weak suit, you may make any 
other finesse, and protect your own suit, if it is 
worth protecting, as well as you can. Thus, with 
a nine led in a suit of which you hold king, 
knave, and others, you may finesse your knave, 
or pass the nine, if not covered by the second 
player, as the state of the game and of your 
hand may dictate. 

Or with knave, nine, and others of a suit, you 
may finesse your nine or pass an eight, if led 



80 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

> 

and not covered. There are a great number of 

similar cases with which practice will make you 
familiar. 

There are several considerations which will 
lead you to judge whether your partner's lead is 
from a strong or a weak suit. The card he leads ; 
when compared with those of the suit which you 
hold, may show you that it cannot be the lowest 
of four, or even of three cards, or that ; if it is, 
the card against which you would finesse is in 
his hand. 

Or he may have led before, and you have found 
that his lead was from a suit of but little strength. 
In this case, as his first lead ought to have been 
from his strongest suit, it is fair to presume that 
his second is yet weaker. 

Or if one suit has been played out, or is plainly 
the adversary's suit, and you have thrown away 
a card from a second, it is very likely, when your 
partner leads a third suit, that he has done so, 
not because he is strong in it, but to avoid leading 
the suit which you have shown him to be your 
weakest. 

It can hardly ever be right to play the queen 
on your partner's ten when not covered with the 
knave by the second player. Unless he has led 
from ten, knave, king, in which case your queen 



THIRD HAND. 81 

caii do no good, the ten is almost to a certainty 
his best card in the suit, and you are right to 
finesse against the knave. 

In trumps, especially when very strong in them, 
you may finesse more deeply than in the other 
suits. You may occasionally finesse against two 
cards. Thus, with ace, knave, ten, if there is 
no indication of a strong necessity for securing 
two rounds, you may play your ten. If your 
partner holds no honor, you secure two tricks in 
the suit, unless the two other honors lie behind 
you. If he does hold an honor, the finesse is 
generally as good in your hand as in his. 

With an honor turned up to your right, you 
should finesse your ten, holding ace, knave, and 
ten, and almost always your knave, holding ace 
and knave alone, or with a small card or cards. 

The finesse of knave, from king, knave, is 
rarely right, unless your hand is such that you 
can almost answer for winning the game, if your 
partner has led from strength, or unless it is ob- 
vious that he has led from weakness. 

In the second round of a suit you often know 
that the best card remaining in it is behind you. 
Thus, holding king and others, you have led a 
small card, and your partner has won the trick 
with the queen. He returns to you a small card; 
6 



82 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

you know the ace to be behind you; your partner 
has it not, or he would have played it; your right- 
hand adversary has it not, or he would not have 
allowed the queen to make the trick. In this 
case, if along with your king you hold the ten, 
you must play it and finesse against the knave. 
If the fourth player holds both the ace and the 
knave, it cannot be helped. He will make both 
tricks, but you have taken the only chance for 
your king. 

The foregoing is equally good in any other 
combination of the cards, when on the second 
round you find yourself with the second and 
fourth best of the suit, aad a certainty or strong 
probability that the best lies behind you. Thus, 
your partner, on your lead, wins the trick with 
the ace, and returns to you a small card. You 
hold the queen and ten ; you are right to finesse 
your ten, for if the second player had held the 
king he would have played it most probably, the 
suit not being trumps, and, in trumps, at least as 
often as not. 

As third player, you must bear in mind that 
"to finesse" means to retain in your hand the 
best card of the suit, playing a lower one not in 
sequence with such best card, on the chance that 
the intermediate card is in the hand of the second 



FOURTH HAND. 83 

player; in the case of a finesse against two cards, 
such as the finesse of the knave, holding ace, 
knave, on the chance that the intermediate cards, 
one or both of them, are with the second player. 
There is therefore no finesse against a hand which 
has none of the suit, or which plainly does not 
hold the intermediate card or cards against which 
you would finesse. This caution equally applies 
to the second player, who, though not so fre- 
quently as the third, has many opportunities of 
using a finesse to advantage. 

FOURTH HAND. 

Of the fourth player there is little to be said 
here except that it is his business to take the 
trick if he can, unless it is already his partner's, 
and, if he cannot do so, to throw away his lowest 
card. 

In this position you should especially bear in 
mind that it is wrong to give away a trick with- 
out a very strong probability, almost a certainty, 
of making two tricks by your forbearance. Many 
players, if they hold the ace, knave, and others, 
of a suit of which the adversary leads the king, 
invariably forbear to take the trick, in the ex- 
pectation that the leader will continue the suit in 
which they then hold the perfect tenace. It is a 



84 * A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

bad and dangerous practice, which I cannot recom- 
mend to you, except you have some special rea- 
son for it. Your partner, believing the ace to be 
against him, will trump the next round, if he can. 
The leader's partner may have but one of the 
suit, which, if it is continued, he will trump, and 
your ace will probably never make a trick. You 
give up, for one round at least, the great advan- 
tage of getting the lead. The leader, either from 
suspecting your tactics, or because he has another 
strong suit to show his partner, changes his lead, 
and when the suit is next led it is probably by 
your right-hand adversary, who leads through 
your tenace, instead of to it. In the mean time 
you may have upset the general scheme of your 
partner's game by leading him to believe that the 
whole of this suit is against him. And what 
have you gained by your ingenuity ? If you 
play in the simple way, and take the king with 
the ace, you will equally remain with the knave 
the best card of the suit in its third round, if the 
second round is led by the original leader, or 
if it is returned to him by his partner, unless he 
has the opportunity, and avails himself of it, of 
finessing a ten. The chance of your partner 
playing this suit up to its original leader is so 
small as not to be worth consideration. He will 



FOURTH HAND. 85 

not do so if he has any thing else to do: but, such 
as the chance is, it tells against this practice, 
which is rarely advisable unless you are very 
strong in trumps. In this case not only is it 
allowable to run risks which should be otherwise 
avoided, but also your forbearance may tempt the 
adversary to lead trumps. This is more especially 
the case if one strong suit has been previously 
declared against you. Your adversary, who then 
believes that he and his partner hold at least the 
tierce major in a second suit, will not unfre- 
quently be induced to lead a trump. 

The foregoing caution is applicable also to the 
second player; who, however, under the circum- 
stances described, may pass a king with a some- 
what less risk than is incurred by the fourth 
player; for, if the suit is continued, he takes the 
second trick in it with his knave, and undeceives 
his partner at once. 

There are occasionally cases in which it be- 
comes plain that the fourth hand must not take 
the trick. I will put the most obvious, remind- 
ing you that the case is the same with every 
similar combination of the cards. 

As fourth player you have three cards left in 
your hand, the king, the ten, and a small card, of 
a suit of which the leader has led the queen, and 



86 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

you know him also to hold the knave and the 
nine. These are the only cards left of the suit, 
which we will suppose to be trumps, or, w T hich 
comes to the same thing, that the trumps have all 
been played. It is clear that, if you take the 
queen with your king, you only make one trick 
with your three cards, as the knave and nine will 
lie behind your ten and small card. It is equally 
clear that, if you refuse to win the queen, and 
play your small card, you will make two tricks 
out of the three, as the knave and nine must 
then be led up to your king and ten. 

There are also some cases in which the fourth 
player should take a trick which already belongs 
to his partner. Here again I will put a very 
obvious combination, leaving it to practice to 
show you others of a similar character. 

You have the ace and a small card of a suit, 
and two or three losing cards, which you know 
that your partner cannot win. He, as second 
player, has taken the trick in the suit of which 
you hold the ace and a small one, and you know 
that he can have nothing but that suit to play. 
If you do not take that trick from him, you will 
be forced to take the next trick with your ace, 
and have nothing left for it but to play your losing 
cards and to submit to the loss of the remaining 



INTERMEDIATE SEQUENCES. 87 

tricks ; but if you take his trick with your ace, 
aud return to him the small card, you give him 
the opportunity of a finesse, when he will pro- 
bably make two, or, it may be, all the tricks in 
the suit. If he can only make one, you have 
lost nothing by taking this chance. 

INTERMEDIATE SEQUENCES. 

An intermediate sequence is one which is 
neither at the head nor at the bottom of a suit. 
Thus, a suit of ace, queen, knave, ten, and a 
small card, contains an intermediate sequence. 
The way to play this suit, as also one containing 
a tierce to a knave, has been shown before ; but 
some ingenious players have endeavored to create 
a system for playing suits containing small inter- 
mediate sequences, such as a tierce to a ten^ to a 
nine, or to an eight, &c. 

Take some such suit as this, — king, nine, eight, 
seven, and four. They say that it is not right, in 
such eases as this, to play the lowest of the suit, 
but the lowest of the sequence, lest the first trick 
should be made against them by a very small 
card. They commence, then, with the seven. On 
the second round, unless called on to take or 
attempt to take the trick, they throw the four. 

I caiiDot give my adhesion to this doctrine. 



88 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST 

My partner leads the seven, and I or the adver- 
sary take the first trick, and continue the suit, 
when ray partner throws the four. I can only 
believe that he has led the best card of a weak 
suit. I perhaps refrain, in consequence, from 
leading trumps, which I might otherwise have 
done, and I miscalculate his hand in many ways. 
The third round, to which they must of necessity 
play a higher card than that first led, will, they 
say, undeceive me. But in the mean time all 
the mischief may have been done. I may have 
led the third round in the hope of forcing my 
partner, and I have forced the adversary instead ; 
or I may have changed the whole scheme of my 
game. 

But they say, perhaps, that to the second 
round of the suit they would play the eight, and 
not the four ; and this appears to me to be less 
objectionable. In this way they at least do not 
deceive me as to their having led from a strong 
suit. Yet still they have concealed from me one 
card, the four, which I shall believe to be in an 
adversary's hand, and which, not having been 
played by either adversary, may readily lead me 
to the conclusion that one of them has asked for 
a trump. The least evil is that I miscount the 
hand which I cannot believe to contain the four. 



INTERMEDIATE SEQUENCES. 89 

These disadvantages, tending as they do to 
mystify the game, appear to me to more than 
counterbalance the small advantage of making 
sure that the first trick is not given away to a 
very small card. The intermediate sequence, 
however, of ten, nine, and eight, is of sufficient 
importance to justify this system of play in criti- 
cal positions, but by no means as a general rule. 

The foregoing rules will be found easily intelli- 
gible, and not too great a tax on the memory, if 
the learner will be at the trouble of placing 
before him the cards named in the different 
cases given to him. Without this precaution, 
the enumeration of a variety of cards confuses 
the mind and presents no picture to the eye. 



90 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 



CHAPTER II. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR GOOD PLAYERS. 

If my reader took up this volume as a beginner, 
I venture to hope that he has carefully studied 
and understood the preceding chapter. If so, 
and if he has played in accordance with its 
advice for at least a few months, he is now a good 
whist-player, and there is some presumption in 
addressing to him further advice. For it de- 
pends on himself — his inclination, leisure, and 
opportunities — whether or not he makes further 
progress, and takes his place in the first class of 
those who find amusement in this beautiful game. 
His own observation in a month, if he is a care- 
ful observer, will be worth more to him than all 
he could read in a year, and each day will reveal 
to him some new combination or subtlety of his 
art. What more I have to say is therefore 
chiefly in the way of suggestion, which may im- 
prove the general scheme of his play. 

Whist, as played by its best players, has much 



SUGGESTIONS FOR GOOD PLAYERS. 91 

changed in its general features during the last 
thirty years. When I first remember it, its 
great celebrities were, for the most part, men 
whose early education had been at the old game, 
or long whist. They were on the whole, I think, 
more accurate and careful than we are now-a- 
days, and, it may be, greater masters of their art 
in its details ; but, whether from the traditions of 
their early training, or from other circumstances, 
they were wanting in the dash and brilliancy 
which distinguish the best modern players, and 
sinned, to my mind, by what we now call a back- 
ward game. 

I remember, as a youngster, being told by one 
of the highest authorities, on the occasion of my 
having led a single trump from a hand of great 
strength in all the other suits, that the only justi- 
fication for leading a singleton in trumps was the 
holding at least ace and king in the three re- 
maining suits. He spoke the opinion of his 
school. That school, I am inclined to believe, 
might teach us much that we have neglected ; but 
I should pick out of it one man alone, the cele- 
brated Major Aubrey, as likely to be very for- 
midable among the best players of the present 
day. He was a player of great original genius, 



92 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

and refused strict adherence to the over-careful 
system to which his companions were slaves. 

But whist had travelled, and thirty or more 
years ago we began to hear of the great Paris 
whist-players. They sometimes came among us; 
more frequently our champions encountered them 
on their own ground, and returned to us with a 
system modified, if not improved, by their French 
experience. For our neighbors, accurate, logical, 
and original thinkers, had not been content to imi- 
tate our system, — perhaps their opportunities of 
doing so were too few, — but had created a system 
of their own, which had the advantage of being 
but little influenced by the traditions of long 
whist, — a game never very fashionable or carefully 
studied in Paris. We were forced to recognize 
a wide difference between their system and our 
own ; and " the French game" became the scorn 
and the horror of the old school, which went 
gradually to its grave with an unchanged faith, 
and in the firm belief that the invaders, with 
their rash trump leading, were all mad, and that 
their great master Deschapelles — the finest whist- 
player beyond any comparison the world has ever 
seen — was a dangerous lunatic. The new school, 
however, as I well remember, were found to be 
winning players. 



SUGGESTIONS FOR GOOD PLAYERS. 93 

It is not very easy to give an accurate definition 
in a small compass of the rival systems ; and that 
which I shall attempt must be taken with some 
allowance for the necessary exaggeration of the 
caution of the one and the rashness of the other. 

The English player of the old school never 
thought of winning the game until he saw that 
it was saved. 

The French player never thought of saving the 
game until he saw that he could not win it. 

The former, therefore, saved very many games 
which his rival would have lost; but the latter 
won a much greater number, which English 
caution would have missed winning, and would 
have stopped at the score of three or four, if not 
less. If forced to take my choice between these 
systems, carried to their extreme, I should with- 
out hesitation prefer the game of rash attack to 
that of over-cautious defence; but I am not so 
forced, and recommend a middle course, leaning, 
however, more nearly to the new than to the old 
doctrine. 

Thus, with any thing like a fair chance of 
winning the game from the beginning, it is right 
to run no little risk to seize the opportunity which 
may not occur again. 

Let us take an example. The game is at its 



94 A TREATISE ON SHORT Will ST. 

beginning, and a small card lias been turned up. 
I bold tbe queen, knave, and two small trumps, 
tierce to a knave and a small card in tbe second 
suit, queen, knave, and a small card in the third, 
and a guarded king in the fourth. With this, 
which is not very great strength, or with any 
hand of a similar character, I believe it so im- 
portant to find out whether my partner has a 
third honor, and whether consequently I may 
play to win the game, that I unhesitatingly lead 
a small trump. If I find him very weak, I have 
no doubt played to a disadvantage, and must 
change my attack to defence, making the best of 
my hand, which would probably have been more 
profitably commenced by the knave from my 
tierce. But if my partner has one honor, and a 
trump to return to me, with only one strong suit, 
to which he, by the card which he throws to the 
third round of trumps, and the adversary, by his 
lead, will direct me, we shall very probably win 
the game, or at least be very close to it. The 
player of the old school would have opened the 
hand with a tierce to a knave, as exposing him to 
the least danger. 

I have only taken this hand as no unfair 
instance of a very large number of similar com- 
binations, which illustrate the difference between 



SUGGFSTIOXS FOR GOOD PLAYERS. 95 

backward and forward play, to the advantage, in 
my belief, of the latter. 

But those who do nie the honor to follow my 
advice must always be ready to change their 
tactics at once if their attack fails, and must re- 
member that it is useless to persist playing a 
strong game with resources already weakened by 
failure. They will probably have lost something, 
but they will have taken a chance well worth the 
price they have paid for it. 

Xo mistake is more common or more fatal than 
that, having seen with good reason, at the outset 
of a hand, the promise of a great score, the player 
does not yield soon enough to indications that 
that promise was fallacious, but obstinately pur- 
sues his first idea. 

The following case is a very singular illustra- 
tion of this danger: — 

I dealt, and turned up a queen, along with 
which I held two small trumps. My partner — 
nor was he a bad player — held the ace and four 
of the smallest trumps, and, so to speak, the 
whole of another suit. "With this strength, as- 
sisted by my queen, he promised himself, reason- 
ably enough, a great score, if not the whole game. 
But the first two tricks showed him that he would 
be over-trumped. He should have submitted to 



96 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

this, and, as it happened, he would have made a 
good score; but he was unable to dismiss the idea 
of a strong attack. He trumped the second trick 
with his ace, led a trump, and we made no other 
trick. Thus with ace, queen, eight trumps, five 
of which were in one hand, between us, we lost 
twelve tricks out of the thirteen. It may interest 
a learner, and he will find it very easy, to place 
the cards so that this shall be possible. 

I may have said elsewhere, but I am not afraid 
to repeat it, that the best whist-player is he who 
plays the game in the simplest way, and who 
always bears in mind the great maxim that it is 
of more importance to give information to his 
partner than to deceive his adversary. And this 
is all the more important when it is remembered 
that the same players, generally speaking, are 
always playing together. If I am thrown among 
players of whom I know nothing, I feel that I 
play to a great disadvantage. I am like a boy on 
the first day of going to a new school, not know- 
ing whom to like, whom to trust, and whom to 
distrust, — from whom to expect assistance and 
honest advice, or from whom to dread a hoax. I 
must trust, like him, to the quickness of my ob- 
servation to acquire the information which is 
necessary to my success. But when I know my 



SUGGESTIOXS FOR GOOD PLAYERS. 97 

players, I value liiin the most who never deceives 
me, and whose unvarying certainty enables me, as 
it were, to play his cards with almost the same 
knowledge of them as I have of my own. 

Let us take an instance or two. I have laid 
down a rule — it is no invention of mine, but is 
given, I think, in the old works of Hoyle, or 
Matthews, or both, and was decided to be right 
after some controversy among the chief Graham's 
players many years ago — that with a tierce to a 
king in any suit, it is only right to commence 
with the knave when you hold at least five of the 
suit. Xothing, however, is more common, even 
among very fair players, than to commence with 
the knave, holding this tierce alone, or with one 
other card only. It is a grave error, and I refuse 
to consider any man, whoever he may be, a fine 
whist-player who commits it. He has not under- 
stood the immense advantage which it is to me, 
not in that suit only, but ranging over the 
whole of the hand, to know, as if I saw it, that 
when he commences a tierce to a king with the 
knave, he has at least five cards in the suit. But 
perhaps he thinks the rule a bad one. Be it so; 
though I differ from him, my objection still re- 
mains in full force. The rule is known and ob- 
served by the best players; and he, for some 
7 



98 A TREATISE ON SHORT Will ST. 

crochet of his own, has refused me the informa- 
tion which I have a right to expect from him, 
and which, in the last few cards of the hand, will 
very probably make the difference of my knowing, 
or being ignorant, whether I can win or save the 
game. 

Again, I have laid down the following rule, on 
which I always act. As second player, holding 
king second, if a small card is led, play your 
king in trumps, and your small card in the other 
suits. My reason for this is as follows : good 
players in the common suits generally avoid lead- 
ing from an ace suit; they keep their ace, if pos- 
sible, as being almost as good as a trump to bring 
in their strong suit. The ace, therefore, in this 
case will generally be behind you, either with the 
third player or with your partner, and your king 
would be played to a loss, or to little use. But 
trumps are led from great strength in the suit, 
and as the ace is the strongest card, you may ex- 
pect in the majority of cases that it is in the hand 
of the leader, and that your king will make the 
trick. My reasons may not convince you in this, 
which has always been a vexed question ; but, un- 
less there is some very obvious reason why it is of 
vital importance to me to get the lead, my partner 
at least knows when I play the king second hand, 



SUGGESTIOXS FOR GOOD PLAYERS. 99 

not being trumps, that I either hold the ace, with 
or without others, or no other card of the suit, 
and I have given him information which may be 
of great value to him. If you object to my rule, 
take the other course, and always play your king. 
It is better for you to be uniformly wrong than 
to be sometimes right and sometimes wrong, and 
to leave your partner in constant uncertainty as 
to the state of your hand. 

Take, as a third instance, another rule. With 
ace and small cards, do not commence with your 
ace, unless you have five or more cards in the 
suit. I have said elsewhere that the French do 
not observe this, but play out the ace with four 
of the suit. As to this difference, there is much 
to be said on both sides ; but I prefer our rule. 
However this may be, give me the partner who 
invariably observes the rule, and who, by this 
constant observance, shows me, when he plays 
out the ace, and follows it by a small card, that, 
unless he has that small card only, or the queen 
and two other smaller cards, of which the fall of 
the cards will almost always inform me, he holds 
three other cards in the suit. If I am not to get 
this partner, give me next the player who always 
plays out the ace with three small cards. He 
plays wrong to my thinking, but he does not de- 



100 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST 

ceive me, for I know his practice ; nor does he 
puzzle me by playing sometimes in one way, 
sometimes in the other. 

FALSE CARDS. 

It almost follows from what I have said above, 
that I hold in abhorrence the playing false cards. 
I freely admit that to this practice there is great 
and frequent temptation, and I find it accordingly 
to be chiefly the vice of the very young or the 
very old whist-player. Youth is too careless, and 
old age too feeble, to resist. I am not surprised 
at this, for there is great enjoyment, when your 
trick succeeds, in having taken in your adversary, 
and having won the applause of an ignorant gal- 
lery; while if you have played in the common- 
place way, even your partner scarcely thanks you. 
You have done your duty, — nothing more, — and 
he had a right to expect it of you ; but he will 
trust you another time. Do not deceive him. 

You have ace and king of a suit, and you take 
the trick with your ace. This is probably in 
your adversary's suit, for you would hardly think 
it right to deceive me in my own, but you cannot 
resist the temptation of taking in your opponent. 
What is it that you have done ? You have told 
me, as plainly as whist language can speak, that 



FALSE CARDS. 101 

you do not hold the king. In no other position 
in life would you tell me that which is untrue. 
What sufficient object do you propose to yourself 
by doing so in this instance ? 

It is true that every now and then you will 
gain an advantage over the adversary, but the dis- 
advantage to me is certain and invariable. I 
must play all the worse for being blindfolded. 
Perhaps I fear to lead trumps, because I believe 
that the suit in question is wholly in the posses- 
sion of my adversaries ; I should have led them 
if I had thought it possible that you could pro- 
tect me in that suit, and you have injured the 
whole scheme of my game, or it may be that I 
am sorely put to it to find one trick in your hand 
with which to save the game. Be sure that the 
last suit in which I shall look for it will be that 
in which you have told me that you were unable 
to win, say a knave or a ten, at a cheaper price 
than your ace. Again, believing that the king 
is held by my opponents, and being probably able 
to say in which of their hands it ought to be, 
I miscount the numerical strength of all the 
players in all the suits, until, at last, I find that 
my partner has paid me the ill compliment of 
believing that I am likely to play as well with my 
eyes shut as open. I shall surely remember this, 



102 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

and the bad effect of your deceit is not confined 
to the particular hand I have spoken of. It un- 
favorably affects our interests, when we are part- 
ners, for many a long day. Until you have radi- 
cally cured yourself of this error, and redeemed 
your character for straightforwardness by a long 
course of intelligible play, I shall distrust you, 
and shall never feel sure when you take a low 
card with the ace, that you have not concealed 
from me the king. 

Let me take one more instance, as a type of a 
very large class of cases which illustrate the 
danger of false cards. 

You hold, say, the nine, ten, and an honor in 
trumps, and, having to trump a trick, without 
any risk of being over-trumped, you trump with 
your ten. Your idea is that your adversary, who 
has shown no disposition to lead trumps, will 
force you again, in the belief that he will thus 
take an honor out of your hand. The oppor- 
tunity does not arise, and we arrive at the last 
four or five cards of the hand. In most cases, 
by this time, counting the cards I know you to 
hold, and making allowance for those which I 
know you cannot have, I also know that you 
must hold, say, two trumps, and no more. You 
have already trumped with the ten, therefore 



FALSE CARDS. 103 

your two remaining trumps ought to be two 
honors. I play in the certainty that this is so, 
and I find that one of them is the nine. 

Perhaps you will tell me, as I have been told 
by gentlemen with whom I frequently play, il I 
should never have played such and such a card" 
(a false one) "if I had had you for my partner." 
I feel much obliged to you. You and I shall 
probably win together; but why should you give 
cause of complaint to your other partners ? They 
must be very bad indeed if they do not suffer 
by it. 

I do not, however, go the length of saying 
that false cards should never be played; but I 
prescribe to myself, and advise to you, the follow- 
ing limits to the practice. 

With a partner so bad that no regularity in 
your play conveys to him any information, while 
he constantly misleads you as to the state of his 
own hand, all that is left to you is to confuse 
your adversaries as much as you can, and you 
will do well to play false cards on every oppor- 
tunity. 

Another exception to my principle, and a 
somewhat similar one, is, when you have found 
your partner so miserably weak in cards all 



104 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST 

round, that you can do him no harm by de- 
ceiving him. 

In the last three or four cards of the hand 
false cards may often be played with great effect, 
and with no risk. The great scheme of the 
hand cannot be affected by them. Rightly or 
wrongly, it has been settled and acted on long 
before. You are approaching closely the final 
result, which you can more or less foresee. At 
least you probably know thus much, that if your 
partner holds one particular card, of which you 
are doubtful, the result you desire is attained 
under any circumstances ; and that if he holds it 
not, you can do him no harm by deceiving him. 
In such cases as this you may often play a false 
card with advantage. You may deceive your 
adversary, and cannot injure your partner. 

Lastly, there are not unfrequent occasions 
when a card is a false one as against your oppo- 
nents, but not as against your partner, who 
knows, or ought to know, that you have the card 
which you have concealed. In these cases it is 
obvious that the false card may be played, if you 
have a partner on whose intelligence you can 
depend. 

Practice and observation will show you, more- 
over, that when playing against a skilful oppo- 



FALSE CARDS. 105 

nent, who carefully notes the smallest cards, and 
more especially when your partner, though a tole- 
rable player, does not pay attention to those 
which seem of little consequence, you may often 
gain an advantage, generally in that opponent's 
suit, by playing false cards of a low denomi- 
nation. Say that you have some such suit as 
this : the ace, nine, eight, and six. Your right- 
hand adversary commences with the king, from a 
king-queen suit, or even with the knave from a 
suit of tierce to a king and two small cards. You 
may fairly expect to make two tricks in the suit, 
or at least to defend it ; that is, to hold the second 
best card in it, guarded after two rounds. You 
take the first trick in this suit with your ace, and 
when the second round is led you throw your 
eight. If in these two rounds the seven falls, 
your six and your nine are equal cards; and if 
the ten (which will generally be the case if the 
leader held originally five of the suit, the ten not 
being one of them) has fallen also, your nine and 
six defend the suit, in which I suppose the origi- 
nal leader to retain an honor and two very small 
cards. He is often puzzled how to proceed, and 
may easily be in doubt as to the position of the 
six. He either has to change his lead, or if he 
continues it and plays out his honor, it is trumped, 



106 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

while your fourth card imprisons his remaining 
two. Some such false cards as this are justifiable 
under the circumstances I have supposed, more 
especially if you have a very weak hand, when 
you should be careful not to get rid of even the 
lowest card in your adversary's strong suit, if you 
originally held four of it. Observation will show 
you how very frequently even the very low cards, 
in the suit against you, become of great value 
after two or three rounds. This style of play 
will often be of service in trumps. In the other 
suits you must be careful that your partner does 
not mistake your tactics, and believe that you are 
asking for trumps. Indeed, you will rarely be 
quite safe from this danger unless you know that 
he has no trump to lead you, or have no cause 
for fear if he does lead one. 

If any are inclined to enlarge the limits for 
playing false cards which I have ventured to lay 
down, let them at least remember that the more 
skilful their partner the more dangerous it is to 
deceive him, and that the most fatal false cards 
are those which, being of value, and being played 
early in the hand, are likely to affect its general 
scheme. French players are dangerously addicted 
to false cards; and the Americans rarely play the 
right card if they have one to play which is likely 



UXDER-PLAY. 107 

to deceive everybody. They play for their own 
hands alone ; — the worst fault I know in a whist- 
player. 

UNDER-PLAY. 

The meaning of the above term will be best 
understood by taking a case. 

You hold ace, knave, and one or more small 
cards of a suit, not being trumps, and you are the 
fourth to play. The third hand plays the nine, 
which you take with your knave, retaining the 
ace, and one or more small cards. It is almost 
certain that your partner holds either the king or 
the queen, more probably the latter, for the leader 
has not both, or he would have led one of them, 
and his partner ought not to have either. If, 
therefore, you play your smallest card on the 
chance that your partner may make the trick, 
you have st under-played" the original leader. 
This move will often gain a trick. Your partner 
may hold the king, not improbably single, in 
which case it would have fallen had you played 
your ace; or he may hold the queen, which he 
will make, if the king is not put up, as is likely, 
especially if, along with his king, the original 
leader holds the ten. 

The following case, and others similar to it, 



108 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

may be considered to be u under-play," though not 
coming under that name so exactly as the pre- 
ceding. You hold the king, with two or more 
small cards, and are the fourth to play. The 
leader has led a small card, and his partner, 
having taken the trick with the ace, returns the 
lead. You hold up your king, and play a small 
card, on the chance that your partner may win 
the trick. This he is very likely to do, unless the 
original leader holds both queen and knave. For, 
believing the king, which you have held up, to be 
behind him, he will finesse a ten, if he has it, or 
even a nine, rather than play his queen to what 
appears certain destruction. 

The above are sufficient illustrations of a 
"ruse" with which you are no doubt familiar, 
and which is infinite in the number and variety 
of its combinations. It is a very obvious one, 
and therefore a favorite with moderate players, 
who rarely lose an occasion of employing it. Yet 
it should be used sparingly and with care, and 
with such considerations as the following always 
present to your mind. 

" Solve senescentern." A trick too often played 
is suspected and defeated. 

In trumps this manoeuvre, like all others, is 



UNDER-PLAY. 109 

much more justifiable than in the common suits, 
in which it is dangerous. 

A good player is likely to suspect you, if you 
immediately return his suit through him, of hold- 
ing up its master card, on the chance of your 
partner holding the third best. Suspecting you, 
he will at once put up his best card, if the second 
best left in, and the best card, which you have 
thus held up, will very probably be trumped in 
the third round. The original leader is more 
likely to defeat you in this manner, if along with 
his best card, the second best of the suit left in, 
he holds no other card of sufficient value to have 
a chance of drawing the best card from your part- 
ner, if he holds it. In this case, it is clear that 
the only chance of making the second best card 
is that the best is in your hand. Thus, if the 
original leader, in the first case which I gave, led 
from king and three small cards, he will, if you 
attempt to under-play him, put up his king, for 
he has scarce any other chance of making it. If, 
along with his king, he held the ten and others, 
the nine and knave having been played in the 
first round, he will most probably try his ten, in 
the hope that it may draw the ace. 

If it is dangerous to risk under-play with a 
good player, it is equally so with a very bad one, 



110 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST 

who, as good old Matthews says, never finesses 
when he ought to do so. 

You will also do well to remember that you are 
much % less likely to be' suspected of under-play 
if you wait a few rounds, and do not at once re- 
turn your adversary's lead through him, and up 
to his partner's known weakness. If you have 
a good suit of your own, play it. When it is 
partially played out, if you again come into the 
lead, you may under-play your adversary with 
much less fear of detection, for it is supposed 
that, having done the best with your own strong 
cards, you see nothing better to do than to lead 
up to the weakness of your right-hand adversary; 
and if, in the mean time, that right-hand ad- 
versary has got the lead, and has returned his 
partner's suit, you have in no way lost the oppor- 
tunity for your under-play, if you choose to risk 
it. You may equally, indeed with much less 
chance of being detected, hold up your ace as 
second player in the second round, and the 
original leader of the suit, now third to play, will 
be equally puzzled whether to play his king or 
to finesse a lower card, on the chance of drawing 
the ace, which he believes to be in your partner's 
hand. 

Subject to these considerations, your own ex- 



UNDER-PLAY. Ill 

perience will show you that, used sparingly and 
with judgment, under-play is a formidable weapon, 
though often foiled by the very good, and useless 
against the bad, player. Extremes meet in whist 
as elsewhere, and it may be observed of all the 
subtle artifices of the game, that they are em- 
ployed with much more effect against an indiffer- 
ent or even a moderate player than against a man 
who knows every thing or one who knows nothing 
of the game. The former avoids your snare, the 
latter does not see it. It is of little use to dig a 
pitfall for a blind man, who is as likely to walk 
on one side of it, or on the other, or not to walk 
that way at all. But the man of imperfect sight, 
if your trap is temptingly baited, and lies in his 
path, is pretty sure to tumble headlong into it. 
" A little learning" is indeed a dangerous thing 
at our game. Better far to know nothing, and to 
play your cards like the blind man. You mystify 
alike your adversaries and your partner, you turn 
the game upside down, reduce it to one of chance, 
and in the scramble may have as good a chance as 
your neighbors. But if you have learned enough 
to be an indifferent player, for your own sake 
study and improve, or, if you play with even 
fairly good players, you will to a certainty be a 
loser. 



112 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST 



THE FINESSE. 

So much might he said on this head, — so in- 
finite are the varieties of the finesse, — so many 
and so complicated the considerations which make 
it right or wrong, — that an attempt to exhaust 
the subject would equally exhaust the reader and 
confuse his ideas. In the impossibility of writing 
enough, I have long doubted whether it would 
not be better to write nothing, and to leave this — 
the most interesting part of the game — entirely 
to the acuteness and practised observation of the 
student. I will, however, offer to him some ob- 
servations for his guidance, and may best carry 
out my intention by dividing the finesse (which, 
however, might readily be still further divided) 
under two chief heads, viz., the Finesse Specu- 
lative and the Finesse Obligatory. 

THE FINESSE SPECULATIVE. 

The simplest form of finesse is when you hold 
the ace and queen, or the ace, with the queen led 
by your partner, and endeavor to gain the trick 
by playing your own queen, or passing your part- 
ner's, speculating that the king, if not in your 
partner's hand, is in that of your right-hand ad- 



THE FINESSE SPECULATIVE. 113 

versary. This finesse is almost always right, and 
you cannot lose by making it, unless the king is 
single with your left-hand adversary. This is a 
finesse against one card, but you may occasionally 
finesse against two cards, or even more, either in 
the trump suit, or sometimes without great risk 
in the other suits, when the trumps are ex- 
hausted, and you have little cause to fear winning 
cards being brought in against you, which other- 
wise would not have been made. Thus, with ace, 
knave, ten, and one or two others in trumps, I 
cannot think it wrong, unless there is obvious 
reason for making sure of two rounds in the suit, 
to finesse the ten. It is a finesse against two 
cards, the king and the queen; but unless both 
these cards are with your left-hand adversary, you 
have preserved to yourself the tenace. Again, 
your partner may hold an honor, in which case 
your finesse is only against one card. If an honor 
is turned up to your right, you would certainly 
do well to finesse your ten with ace, knave, ten. 
Even your nine with ace, ten, nine, and another, 
especially when the score tells you that your part- 
ner must have an honor or the game is lost. This 
last finesse is more advisable if the honor turned 
up is a king or a queen, as also if you have reason 
8 



114 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

to believe that your partner has one or more cards 
of re-entry, enabling him to repeat his lead. 

I have spoken of the finesse in the high cards, 
but it must be remembered that, when these have 
been played out, the finesse of the lowest cards, 
say, of the five, with the five and the seven, 
against the six, is as valuable as that of the 
queen, from ace, queen, against the king. When 
you have got thus deep into a suit, you will, 
moreover, generally find, if you are a careful ob- 
server, many indications which will inform you 
whether the finesse in the last cards of a suit can 
be made with little or no risk. 

You will also do well to bear in mind that it is 
better to finesse in your adversary's suit than in 
that of your partner, who should be trusted with 
the conduct of his own strength, and that you 
should run but very little risk for the sake of a 
finesse the success of which will only leave you 
at the score of four instead of three, while its 
failure will leave you at the score of two instead 
of three, which in this case I suppose it to be in 
your power to reach. As the converse of this, 
you are right in running a greater risk in a 
finesse the success of which will leave you at the 
score of three while its failure still gives you the 
odd trick. A fortiori, it is unpardonable careless- 



THE FINESSE SPECULATIVE. 115 

ness, if you hold the winning card, to finesse 
when one trick wins the game. 

Even when one trick saves the game, finesse 
should be rejected, unless you feel sure, either 
from your own or your partner's hand, that there 
is no danger. 

In order to finesse, it is not necessary that you 
should hold the best, and third or fourth best, 
&c, of a suit. Finesse is possible, and may be 
forced on you, with almost any combination of 
cards, sequences excepted. Say with king, knave 
against the queen, the ace being in, or with 
queen, ten against the knave, the ace and king 
being both in, or with combinations of less im- 
portance. 

Lastly, I would offer the following opinions — 
not, I fancy, very generally entertained — for the 
consideration of experienced players. With ordi- 
nary hands, finesse may be deep at their com- 
mencement, should contract as they go on, until 
in the last four or five cards there is scarcely any 
opportunity left for finesse, properly so called. 

When weak in trumps, — say even with no 
trumps at all, — finesse deeply in the suit in which 
you believe your partner to be weak, in order, as 
long as you can, to protect him from a force. 
Take some such hand as this : ace, queen, ten, 



116 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

and a small card, or ace, knave, ten, and a small 
card. The partner leads the nine. Many a time 
and oft have I seen the ace put up, and the 
delinquent has excused himself by saying that he 
was so weak in trumps that he was afraid to 
finesse. To my mind he would have been wrong 
in simply finessing his queen. In either case he 
should have passed the nine. I, of course, sup- 
pose him not to have any certain tricks, which he 
can play out, in the other suits. 

THE FINESSE OBLIGATORY. 

An example or two will suffice to explain the 
above term, and to indicate the many cases in 
which you are so far obliged to finesse, that you 
may gain and cannot lose by it unless the hand 
has been played in some unusual and almost im- 
possible manner. You lead from a suit of queen, 
ten, and others. Your partner takes the trick 
with the king, and returns your lead with a small 
card. You now know that the ace is behind you. 
Your partner has it not, or he would have led it. 
Your right-hand adversary has it not, or he 
would not have allowed your partner's king to 
make. You are obliged to finesse your ten. If 
the ace and the knave both lie behind you, it can- 
not be helped, and, in whatever way you play, 



THE FIXESSE OBLIGATORY. Ii7 

both cards will make against you. But if the 
knave is with your right-hand adversary, your 
ten will draw the ace, and your queen gives you 
the command of the suit. 

The following case is as nearly as possible simi- 
lar. You lead from king, ten, and small cards, 
your partner takes with the queen, and returns a 
small card. You know the ace to be behind you; 
and here again, therefore, you must finesse your 
ten. 

Again, say that you have led from king, nine, 
and small cards, and that your partner, having 
taken with the queen, returns to you the eight. 
If you have studied the former chapter of this 
treatise, you know that he has returned to you 
the best card he holds in the suit, and that you 
have to contend not only against the ace, which 
you know to be behind you, but against the 
knave and the ten, neither of which cards can be 
with your partner. The position is difficult, but 
there is no help for it. You must pass your 
partner's eight. It is a finesse against two cards, 
but one or possibly both of them may be with 
your right-hand adversary, in each of which 
cases you will have played to advantage, and 
even in the worst case, viz., that you find both 
knave and ten, along with the ace, behind you, 



118 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

you have yet retained your king guarded, and 
have not given up the entire command of the 
suit. 

This leads to the consideration of another 
numerous class of cases, which, although not un- 
siniilar, cannot strictly be called finesse. Take 
the same cards as given in the last example. 
Your partner equally takes with the queen and 
returns the eight, but your right-hand adversary 
renounces the suit. You now know that the ace, 
ten ; and knave are all three behind you, and it is 
true that there is no finesse against a hand which 
has none of the suit played. Still, you would be 
very wrong to play your king. You must pass 
your partner's eight, and you still hold your king 
guarded, which prevents your left-hand adversary 
from going on with the suit without either giving 
up its command or forcing his partner. Y r our 
king thus guarded may still be of great value to 
you, as your partner will certainly not continue 
the suit, and your right-hand adversary cannot. 
To have played your king would have given the 
entire command of the suit to your left-hand 
adversary, than which no position could be worse. 
Cases similar to this are of frequent occurrence, 
and should be treated on this principle. 



WHEN TO DISREGARD RULE. 119 



WHEN TO DISREGARD RULE. 

Kules are for the majority of eases, not for ex- 
ceptional positions, and a player is good, very 
good, or of the highest class, in proportion to the 
rapidity and acnteness with which he seizes the 
occasions when rule must be disregarded. These 
occasions are so many, and so different, that prac- 
tice and very accurate observation can alone 
master them. If, then, I give an example or two 
of departure from rule, it is in illustration of my 
meaning, and as suggestion, and not in the vain 
effort to exhaust a subject which is infinite, or to 
lay down any fixed principle for that which 
escapes from rule and defies routine. 

It often happens that in order to save the game 
it is necessary that you should make a certain 
number of tricks out of the cards remaining un- 
played. Perhaps you must make them all. You 
see that in order to do this your partner must 
hold certain cards, or that certain other cards 
must be in the hands of your adversaries, favor- 
ably placed for a finesse. The case may be so 
desperate that, for the desired result, it may be 
necessary to place almost all the cards remaining 
in the three hands unknown to you. You do not 
know whether they are so placed, but you do 



120 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST 

know that, if they are not, your game is lost. 
Your first consideration must now be, whether 
there is more than one possible combination of 
the cards by which the required result can be ob- 
tained. If so, you choose the least improbable, 
i.e. that which necessitates the placing of the 
smallest number of unknown cards. Having 
made your choice, if there is a choice, or having 
seized the one chance, if there is but one, rule 
no longer exists, and you must play as if you saw 
the cards in their required position, lying faces 
upward on the table before you. The success of 
your acuteness may not be frequent, for in an in- 
tricate combination the chances will, of course, 
generally defeat you, and you may feel that, after 
all your pains, the difference between a merely 
good player and yourself is practically very slight; 
but when the position of the cards favors you, 
and the chance which you have foreseen comes 
off, you will be well repaid by a pleasant recol- 
lection of your skill for many a long day, and by 
thfi consciousness that you take rank among the 
masters of the game. 

Let me take a tolerably obvious example, be- 
cause it is obvious and fresh in my memory, and 
not as being an unusually fine coup, for any good 
player would have played in the same way. 



WJIEX TO DISREGARD RULE. 121 

There are five cards in hand, and four trumps 
only remain in. Of these I hold the tenace, — 
call it ace and queen ) and I know that my right- 
hand adversary holds the remaining two, — call 
them king and knave. He also holds a thirteenth 
card of another suit. My remaining cards are 
the ace, king, and a small card of another suit. 
I know nothing more of the position of the 
cards, but. in order to save the game, it is neces- 
sary for me to make every trick, and it is my 
lead. 

Place these cards before you, and you will see 
that, if I play, in the ordinary way, my ace and 
king, I have lost the game, as my right-hand ad- 
versary must make one trick. 

There is but one chance for me, viz., to put my 
partner into the lead, when, if he has the best 
cards of the fourth suit, I shall throw away on 
them my ace and king of diamonds, remaining 
with my tenace of trumps, or if my right-hand 
adversary should trump this fourth suit, I over- 
trump him, draw his other trump, and make my 
ace and king, in either case, winning the required 
five tricks. 

I therefore play my small card. This coup 
came off, my partner made the trick, and held 
the two best cards in the fourth suit, which he 



122 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

very properly played. The combination is. com- 
paratively with many others, a simple one, yet it 
serves to illustrate my meaning, as it necessitated, 
as the one single possibility of saving the game, 
the favorable event of four chances. My partner 
must be able to win the first trick, he must hold 
at least two winning cards in the fourth suit, and 
my right-hand adversary must hold at least one 
of my suit. 

Take another example. Some such case is not 
very uncommon. Your adversaries are very 
strong in trumps. They have commenced with 
three rounds of them, making the three first 
tricks, having four by honors, and having three 
trumps yet left, all three in the same hand. It 
is clear that if they can make one trick only in 
the other suits, their game is won. You now win 
the fourth trick, and find yourself with one strong 
suit, say an ace, queen, ten, or an ace, king, knave, 
or ten suit, and with no strength whatever in the 
remaining two suits. 

Your first consideration will be that your part- 
ner must be strong in your weak suits. He need 
not have the whole of them, for, if he is led to, 
more than once, successful finesse in them may 
enable him to make all the tricks, although even 
two honors in one, or both, of them, may be 



WIIFX TO DISREGARD RULE. 123 

against him to his right. If you play your strong 
suit, you part with the possibility of getting the 
lead, and leading to your partner the suits in 
which, in order to save the game, he must be 
strong. You should, therefore, lead to him which- 
ever of your two weak suits appears the more ad- 
vantageous. He will finesse, deeply, for the case 
is desperate, and if he succeeds, he will, if he is 
a fine player, act on the same principle which 
dictated your play, and will lead to you his weak 
suit, which, of course, is your strong one. You 
finesse in your turn, lead to him again in a weak 
suit, and wait for him again to lead to your 
strength. You may readily be able to lead to 
him three times in this way. Both his tricks 
and yours will, at some time or other, be trumped, 
but for this you are prepared, and it cannot be 
helped, as there are three trumps against you in 
one hand which must make. When your adver- 
sary trumps, he must lead up to you or your 
partner. I have seen many a desperate game 
saved in this way; and. as few things are less 
intelligible than an intricate combination merely 
described as above. I will place the cards in an 
order which will explain my meaning and enable 
you to play the hand with a successful result. 



124 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

Your hand is marked 1, your left-hand adver- 
sary 2, and so on. 

1. Two small spades (trumps), ace, king, knave, 
ten in clubs. Ten and three small diamonds. 
Nine and two small hearts. 

2. Ace, king, and one small trump. Two small 
clubs. King, knave, and two small hearts. King, 
knave, and two small diamonds. 

3. Two small trumps. Three small clubs. Ace, 
queen, ten and eight in hearts. Ace, queen, and 
two small diamonds. 

4. Tierce to a queen and three small trumps. 
Queen, nine, eight and one small club. Two 
small hearts. The nine in diamonds. 

4 commences and leads his queen of trumps, 
which makes, and he follows it with the knave. 
This his partner is obliged to win with the king, 
and, in order to draw as many trumps as he can, 
he plays out his ace. Both you and your partner 
renounce, he discarding a small club, and you a 
small diamond, for a reason to be given hereafter. 
It is now clear that as 4 holds three more trumps, 
you must make every trick in the other suits, in 
order to save the game. 

2 still remains with the lead, and following 
your discard, also because his diamonds are as 
strong as his hearts, he leads a small diamond, on 



WHEN TO DISREGARD RULE. 125 

which his partner can only put the nine, won by 
your ten. If you play out your clubs, which is 
your only strong suit, you have lost the game. But 
as your partner must be strong in hearts, and as 
you do not wish to help to establish the diamonds 
of your opponents, you play your nine of hearts, 
which he passes. You continue the suit, he 
takes the trick and leads you a club, when you 
finesse your ten, continue the heart, and the rest 
of the hand plays itself. You have made your 
seven tricks. 

If you are asked why you originally discarded 
a diamond, when you held ten four in that suit, 
and only nine three in hearts, your reason is that 
in this exceptional case it is better for you to re- 
tain, in each of your weak suits, the power of 
leading, as often as there may be occasion, to your 
partner. 

In such cases as these, the play I have advised 
is still more necessary if the trumps remaining in 
against you are to your left hand. For if you 
have all the best cards of a suit, and your partner 
some small cards in it, so that you are sure to 
force the strong hand, yet he, when forced, of 
necessity leads through your partner, and up to 
the suits in which you have nothing, which is a 
more disadvantageous position than if your part- 



126 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

ner is led up to by you or by bis other adver- 
sary. 

Like the examples which I have given before, 
the above is a very obvious one, but the student, 
if inclined, may easily put together others of 
more complication. 

Towards the close of a hand — say in the last 
four cards — it not unfrequently becomes clear 
that only two tricks can be made in a suit as yet 
unplayed, inasmuch as the two last trumps, or the 
last trump and a thirteenth card, are both in one 
hand. In such a case as this, if your four cards 
should all be in the unplayed suit, — say a queen, 
or a knave, and three small cards, — you must 
consider this as if it were a weak suit of two 
cards, and lead your queen, or your knave, as the 
case may be. 

LE GRAND COUP. 

Among the most interesting combinations in 
which rule must be disregarded, that which Des- 
chappelles has named "le grand coup" occupies 
the first place. He had a good right to be its 
godfather, for if any one before him had prac- 
tised it, no one certainly had reduced it to any 
thing like a system, nor has it been employed be- 
fore or since his time with such frequency or 
acuteness as he displayed. 



LE GRAND COUP. 127 

Le grand coup consists in getting rid of a 
superfluous trump. Every one who lias played 
whist much must have observed the not unfre- 
quent occasions when a player has found himself, 
probably in the last three cards of the hand, with 
a trump too many. He has been obliged to 
trump his partner's trick, to take the lead him- 
self, and to lead from his tenace, instead of being 
led to, by which a trick is lost. The triumph of 
the great whist-player is to foresee this position, 
and to take an opportunity of getting rid of this 
inconvenient trump, which may be done either 
by under-trumping the adversary when you can- 
not over-trump him, or by trumping your partner's 
trick when you hold a losing card, with which 
you know you can again give him the lead if you 
wish to do so. I have known Deschappelies, and 
not unfrequently, to foresee this difficulty, and 
defend himself against it, many tricks before it 
was established, or at all apparent to any one 
else. 

I will give the simplest example of le grand 
coup, in a combination of which every good 
player would take advantage. Place the follow- 
ing hands before you with four cards in each, 
leaving out hand No. 2, your left-hand adversary, 
which has nothing to do with the play. 



128 A TREATISE OX SHORT WHIST. 

1. Ace, queen, and a small club (trumps), one 
losing spade. 

3. The winning heart, and the winning spade, 
with any other two cards not being trumps. 

4. King, knave of clubs (trumps), a losing 
heart, and a losing spade. 

Your hand is No. 1, and I suppose you to know 
that the king and knave of trumps lie with your 
right-hand adversary, and that there are no 
trumps left in, except those held by him and 
you. 

3. Your partner has the lead, and leads the 
winning heart. If on this you throw your losing 
spade, you will only make three tricks, for you 
will be obliged to take the next trick, and lead 
from your ten ace, when your right-hand adver- 
sary will make a trick. I give him, of course, 
credit for knowing your three as well as you 
know his two trumps, in which case he will take 
care not to let you over-trump him, if he can help 
it, but will take the obvious chance of your being 
forced to trump and to lead from your tenace. 
But you may, and should, take a very good 
chance of making all four tricks, without any 
risk whatever, for your three tricks will be made 
in any case. You, therefore, instead of throwing 
away your losing spade, trump your partner's 



LE GRAND COUP. 129 

winning heart, and lead the spade. If he can 
win this trick, you remain with your ace, queen 
of trumps behind the king, knave, and must win 
all four tricks. But if your partner should not 
hold the winning spade, or if, holding it, it should 
be trumped, you have lost nothing, for you still 
make three tricks. 

When, many years ago, I first thought of 
writing on Whist, it was my intention to have 
given a variety of hands and curious cases taken 
from actual experience, and arranged after the 
fashion of chess problems; but this has since 
been so excellently done by "Cavendish," that, 
were I to carry out my intention, I should appear 
to be unworthily poaching on a manor which is 
fairly his, and which I could not improve, and I 
have therefore restricted myself to giving such 
examples only as have been necessary for the 
illustration of the advice I have given. The 
whole work of " Cavendish" is admirable; the 
points of difference between us are very few; 
and if in this work I have written any thing of 
value, not the least valuable part of it will be the 
conclusion of this chapter, in which I urge all 
those who desire to become whist-players of the 
highest order to give a very careful study to the 
hands which : - Cavendish" has arranged for them. 
9 



130 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST 

I may, however, permit myself to present to 
my readers one of the most beautiful problems I 
have ever seen. It occurred a few months back 
in actual play in Vienna, and at double dummy. 
Its story runs thus. The most celebrated player 
in Vienna had to play the hands Nos. 1 and 3, 
As soon as the cards were exposed, he ex- 
claimed, " Why, I shall make all thirteen tricks !" 
This appeared impossible to the bystanders, for, 
although his hands were, between them, of com- 
manding strength, still his adversary's hands, 
between them, held every suit guarded, except 
the trump. Large bets were made against the 
accomplishment of the feat, which was, however, 
performed; and it became evident that, if hands 
1 and 3 are rightly played, hands 2 and 4 are 
utterly helpless, and, in spite of three guarded 
suits, must lose all thirteen tricks. I give the 
four hands below, and withhold the key to the 
mystery, in the hope that my readers will be at 
the trouble of finding it for themselves. 



LE GRAND COUP. 



131 



GREAT VIENNA COUP AT DOUBLE DUMMY. 

Clubs are trumps. No. 1 leads, and makes all thirteen 
tricks. 







1 


w 


1 
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132 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST 



CHAPTER III. 



ASKING FOR TRUMPS. 



This conventional sign was first introduced 
some twenty-five years back at Graham's, not 
long before the dissolution of that greatest of 
card-clubs. It was before long adopted by all 
club players, to whom, however, for some time, it 
was more or less restricted. It is now, so to 
speak, universal among English whist-players, 
though not as yet in use out of England, and it 
is of such great importance, and so imperfectly 
understood, as to require a separate chapter. 

It consists in throwing away an unnecessarily 
high card, and it is requisite to pay great atten- 
tion to this definition. Thus, if you have the 
deuce and three of a suit of which two rounds 
are played, by playing the three to the first round, 
and the deuce to the second, you have signified to 
your partner your wish that he should lead a 
trump as soon as he gets the lead. The same 
with any other higher card played unnecessarily 
before a lower. 



ASKING FOR TRUMPS. 133 

I have heard it said thoughtlessly, but not uu- 
frcquently, that this is unfair, that it would be as 
well to make some sign with the finger, to kick 
your partner under the table, or to tell him 
openly to lead you a trump. Indeed, this last 
method would be the least objectionable of those 
alluded to, as your adversaries would gain as 
much information as your partner. But this 
charge of unfairness can only be made by those 
who have thought little of the principles and 
practice of whist. It is fair to give to your part- 
ner any intimation which could be given if the 
cards were placed on the table, each exactly in 
the same manner as the others, by a machine, 
the players being out of sight and hearing each 
of the others. Thus, if you play a king, and 
without obvious reason change your lead, it is 
generally understood that you hold the ace and 
knave. You throw away the ace of a suit in 
order to inform your partner that you hold in it 
the next best cards, and this very act of throwing 
away a higher card before a lower had, many 
years back, a different signification, and instructed 
your partner that you held but two cards in the 
suit. 

The origin of this practice is so perfectly in 
the spirit of our game, when well played, that I 



134 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

ani somewhat surprised at the length of time 
which was required to reduce it to an under- 
stood signification. It arose thus. You have, 
let us suppose, a very strong hand in trumps, 
a strong suit, and two weak suits, say a queen 
and a small card in one, a knave and a small 
card in the other. Your adversary leads the 
king of one of your weak suits. You throw 
your queen in order to induce him to lead a 
trump for the protection of his suit, or to induce 
him at least to change his lead. He does not, 
however, fall into your trap, but plays his ace, 
and you play a small card. Your other weak 
suit is then probably led, and you follow the 
same tactics, but to no purpose. You have to 
deal with a shrewd adversary. Your partner gets 
the lead in the third round of one of these suits. 
How should he reason ? He should see at once 
— and, if a good player, he would see at once — 
that you had endeavored in vain to tempt your 
adversaries to lead 'trumps, and he should do for 
you that from which they had wisely abstained. 
Again : it is, let us say, your partner's lead. He 
has two ace-king suits, and plays his two kings in 
order to show you his strength. To each you 
throw a high card. He reasons thus. My part- 
ner's hand is all, or nearly all, trumps and the 



ASKING FOR TRUMPS. 135 

fourth suit. If it is not, he wishes me to think 
so. and thereby to induce me to lead him a trump. 
This method of play being as old as whist itself, 
it was certain, sooner or later, to be reduced to 
the conventional sign — good in the lowest cards 
as well as the highest — of which I now treat. 

Asking for trumps is, then, a conventional 
sign, like any other, neither more nor less, open to 
no objection on the score of unfairness. Whether 
or not it is an improvement of the game is quite 
another question, but one which it is scarce worth 
while to argue here, as the practice exists, and 
cannot, to my thinking, be put an end to. At 
least, it has simplified the game to the indifferent 
player, and greatly diminished the advantage of 
skill. The time for leading trumps used to be 
the point of all others demanding the greatest 
judgment. Xow, almost as often as not, the tyro 
knows whether his partner wishes trumps to be 
played. So much is this the case, that a player 
of great reputation, who claims such credit as 
may be due to the inventor of this signal, has 
often said that he bitterly regrets his ingenuity, 
which has deprived him of one-half of the ad- 
vantage which he derived from his superior play. 
This practice, however, is established in England, 
and sooner or later it will travel. Let us con- 



136 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

sider what ought to be its meaning, and how it 
may be made of the most value. 

" I always ask for trumps when I wish them 
led," was the remark of a very good player. It 
was plausible, but wrong, for, although apparently 
good for his hand, it might be destructive to that 
of his partner. If the sign is merely to mean, 
" I think a trump would suit my hand/' it is, in 
my opinion, of little use, and your partner would 
be justified in taking no notice of your request, 
if the state of his own hand led him to a con- 
trary opinion. Very great strength in trumps 
justifies alone this intimation to your partner, 
who should treat it not as a request, but as a com- 
mand. He should as it were hear you say to 
him, " I am so strong that, if you have any thing 
to assist me, I answer for the game, or, at least, 
for a great score. Throw all your strength into 
my hand, abandon your own game, at least lead 
me a trump, and leave the rest to me." 

Surely, I have heard it argued, with two or 
three small trumps, and a great hand in the 
other suits, it would be right to ask for trumps. 
Certainly not. If a player is very strong in the 
other suits, he will very early get the lead, and it 
will be better that he should lead from his weak 
trumps than that he should be led to by his part- 



ASKING FOR TRUMPS. 137 

ner. Looked at in this way. there are very few 
cases — I would almost say none — which justify 
the neglect of this command from a partner. 
Almost the only case which occurs to me is 
when you are yourself so strong that, unless your 
partner has thrown a card by mistake, you must 
have the whole game between you; and even 
here, if there is a possibility of missing the 
game, you are quite as likely to hit on it by dis- 
obedience as by attention to his wish. 

A grave responsibility, then, attaches to the 
player who asks for a trump, and I have felt that 
responsibility so keenly, that it is not in my re- 
collection that I ever took this liberty with my 
partner, by which I direct him to abandon his 
game, and blindly to play mine, when I held less 
than four trumps, two honors, or five trumps, one 
honor, along with cards in my own hand, or his, 
which made the fall of the trumps very plainly 
advantageous. I am far from saying that, with 
the strength in trumps which I have described, 
it is always, or even generally, advisable to ask 
for trumps. I have only ventured to lay down 
that which, in my opinion, should be the mini- 
mum. 

I shall probably be told that in thus laying 
down a cast-iron rule, bending to no circum- 



138 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

stances, I am much too " doctrinaire," and that 
such words as "never," or "always," cannot 
apply to the infinite chances of a game of cards. 
I freely admit that I have often been sorely 
tempted to break my rule. Nay, more, I am 
quite aware that I occasionally lose by my rigid 
adherence to it; but I am convinced that in the 
long run I gain far more than I lose, by the abso- 
lute certainty my partners feel as to the strength 
I must have when I give this indication. For 
it cannot be too well remembered, and I have 
noticed it before, that, more or less, the same 
players play together for months, or years, — it 
may be throughout their lives; and the best 
player is he who most carefully notes the peculi- 
arities of the system, the greater or less certainty 
and excellence of each of his playfellows. I 
take it to be scarcely exaggeration to say that no 
man is a very fine whist-player among men with 
whom he is playing for the first time. His 
superior observation — the first quality in a great 
master of the game — stands him in little stead. 
But when all the players, or most of them, and 
their respective excellence, are known, it is diffi- 
cult to overrate the value of a partner as to 
whom, when he plays in a certain way, you know, 
as if his cards were on the table, the exact state 



ASKING FOR TRUMPS. 139 

of his hand. I ask for a trump. My partner 
knows that I hold at least four trumps and two 
honors, or five trumps and one honor. I may 
hold more. As the game proceeds, it probably 
becomes plain that I cannot hold five trumps. 
He knows then that I hold at least two honors. 
It would not be more clear to him if I showed 
him my cards. Or perhaps it becomes evident 
that I do not hold two honors. In this case my 
partner knows that I have at least five trumps 
and one honor. His play in all the suits is regu- 
lated by information such as this, and, if *he 
knows what he is about, he plays to an advantage 
not easy to over-calculate. 

But what happens when you have a partner 
who asks for a trump because, on the whole, "he 
thinks it would suit his hand," and who, on these 
slight grounds, thinks himself at liberty to dic- 
tate to you the most important act of the hand ? 
He asks for trumps with but little strength, — say 
a knave and three small trumps, and a fair hand. 
— his adversaries threatening to trump his best 
suit. Perhaps the coup comes off right, and he 
exults ; perhaps it comes off wrong, and he adds 
to his offence the aggravation of saying, " We 
must have lost the game anyhow ;" perhaps it 
does neither harm nor good, but leaves things 



140 A TREATISE ON SHORT Will ST 

as they would have been in any other way. 
However this may be, the mere effect on the one 
particular hand is of little consequence, but for 
months afterwards — for all time, probably — you 
enter that man in your memory as a partner not 
to be trusted. He asks you for trumps ; it may 
be six weeks after his former flippant demand ; 
you know him capable of doing so for insufficient 
reason ; you distrust him, and very rightly ; he is 
like a ticket-of-leave man, who, having done 
wrong once, is likely to sin again ; the game is 
in danger, you disregard his wish, play your own 
game, and there is an end to the confidence 
which should exist between partners if they are 
to enjoy the full advantages of their partnership. 
Those who agree with my view of this matter 
will, as a necessary consequence of their con- 
fidence in a good partner, throw their strength 
into his hand when he requires them to lead a 
trump. With two or three trumps they will lead 
their best, and if it makes the trick thev will 
follow with the next best. With the ace and 
queen, they will play the ace and then the queen, 
&c. With four trumps, however, unless one of 
them is the ace, I think it still right to lead the 
lowest. With the ace and others, play the ace, 
as your partner may have asked, from a very long 



ASKING FOR TRUMPS. 141 

suit, in which case you will probably catch an 
honor from your adversary. 

In asking for a trump, it is rarely safe to give 
the invitation in your partner's lead with a high 
card, — a knave or a queen. Your partner com- 
mences with an ace-king suit. You throw the 
knave, having a small card of the suit. If he 
has a very weak hand he perhaps changes the 
suit, in fear of drawing your queen, if you have 
it, or, under any circumstances, of leaving the 
adversary in command of the suit and exposing 
you to be forced. Or, if he has fair strength, he 
probably plays a small card of the suit, in the 
hope that you may hold the queen, and in the 
belief that, if you have it not, you will trump. 
To his great consternation, he finds you with a 
small card, and the trick is lost. 

It must also be very carefully observed that 
this invitation must be given in the first round 
of a suit. If it is to be permitted to play your 
lowest card — say the deuce — to the first round of 
a suit, and afterwards to play a high card — say a 
knave — holding a lower one, to be played in the 
third round, in the idea that this is asking for 
trumps, there is an end to playing false cards, on 
pain of your partner mistaking your intention, 
and, right or wrong, leading you a trump. Now, 



142 A TREATISE OX SHOUT WHIST. 

although false cards are very rarely advisable, 
no one will say that they ought never to be 
played. 

In conclusion, I again draw attention to the 
definition of asking for trumps, viz. : " throwing 
away an unnecessarily high card." Mistakes in 
this practice are of very frequent occurrence, in 
some such way as this. My partner is second to 
play, and holds, say, the ten and a small card of 
the suit, which the adversary opens with a small 
card. My partner, being second player, plays 
his ten, and the trick is taken with the king, the 
lead is returned, and the original leader takes 
with the ace, my partner throwing his small card. 
He thinks that he has asked me for a trump, but 
he has done no such thing. His ten is not, as 
far as I can tell, an unnecessarily high card. It 
is an effort to take the trick. It may be played 
in the ordinary way from knave, ten, and a small 
card of the suit. He could only have given in 
this way a legitimate invitation for a trump, if 
the card originally led had been higher than his 
ten, which in this case would have been an un- 
necessarily high card. I venture, then, to give 
the following advice for the regulation of this 
practice : — 

To ask for a trump, you must throw away 



ASKING FOR TRUMPS. 143 

an unnecessarily high card, playing afterwards a 
smaller card of the same suit. 

You are not justified in asking for a trump with 
less than two honors, four trumps, or one honor, 
five, and cards in your own or your partner's 
hand, which appear to make the fall of the 
trumps desirable. If I am forced to admit some 
exception to this rigid rule, it will only be to- 
wards the end of the hand, when the cards are so 
far known — when perhaps it is evident that your 
partner must hold certain cards, or fail to save or 
win the game — that it may be justifiable to ask 
for trumps with less than the strength which I 
have indicated. 

The demand must be made in the first round 
of the suit, unless it is right for you to take, or 
attempt to take, the trick in the first round, in 
which case the demand may be made in the 
second and third rounds of the suit. Thus, if, 
being second player, it has been right for you to 
cover a high card, or if you have taken the first 
trick in a suit, you are not precluded from asking 
for trumps in that suit, if it should subsequently 
appear advisable to do so. 

Be careful of asking, especially in your part- 
ner's lead, with an honor, or even with a ten. 

With three cards in a suit, do not ask with 



144 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

your highest. The middle card will be less likely 
to mislead your partner, and will give you an 
opportunity, if you see occasion, to change your 
tactics, and, by playing a higher card to the 
second round, to conceal your request at least for 
a time. When you are at last obliged to play 
• your lowest card, your partner, if he is a good 
player, will understand your change of intention. 
When your partner asks for a trump, sacrifice 
your game to his, lead your highest and your 
second best trump, if you have the opportunity 
and have two or three trumps. With four 
trumps, unless the ace is one of them, lead the 
lowest; but in either case play your hand gene- 
rally, so as to strengthen his. Having an ace 
and others, however, in trumps, always play out 
your ace, even holding three or more other cards 
in the suit. 



D EC IS I OX S. 145 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE PRINCIPLES WHICH SHOULD GUIDE 
DECISIONS. 

However carefully laws may have been framed, 
cases will not unfrequently occur for which it has 
been impossible to provide, and which should 
therefore be referred for decision to some player 
of recognized judgment, well acquainted with the 
laws of whist. If he happens to be a good lawyer 
to boot, so much the better; for I have known 
many questions at this game not unworthy of a 
lawyer's practised acuteness, and of the habit, 
which his profession gives him, of weighing 
right and wrong. 

The arbitrator will do well to bear in mind the 
following principles, and to construe by their 
light such laws as may bear on the case referred 
to him, or, under their guidance, to establish a 
precedent where there exists no law, which even 
by analogy may assist him. 

The chief object of the laws of whist is to pre- 
vent an unfair advantage being gained by any 
10 



146 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

one. Each case must, therefore, be judged, not 
by that which was the probable iutention of the 
player interested in it, but by that which might 
have been the intention of a player disposed to 
take such unfair advantage. 

There is no object in a penalty for an error by 
which he who commits it can by no possibility 
profit. Thus, Dummy's partner may, without 
being liable to any penalty, expose some or all 
of his cards. 

No player can profit by his own mistake. 

Where two or more players are in fault, it 
must be considered with whom the first fault lies, 
and how far it induced, or, it may be, invited, 
the subsequent offence of his adversary. 

All penalties should be as nearly as possible in 
proportion to that which might have been gained 
by the offence if unnoticed. 

In illustration of the above principles, I sub- 
join a few disputed cases, and the decisions on 
them. 

Case 1. — A. says, "I have the game." He is 
desired to lay his cards on the table; complies 
with the request; they are called, and he makes 
four by tricks, this being one short of the game. 
He allows his adversary to deal, who, having com- 
pleted his deal, says, " You would have been game, 



DECISIONS. 147 

if you had scored jour honors." A. then claims 
to have won the game, because his original asser- 
tion was correct, and because he only forgot to 
score his honors owing to his being confused by 
his claim being disputed, and by his cards being 
called. 

Decision. — A. cannot score his honors. His 
original claim was irregular, and he was at least 
bound, at some time or other, within the limit 
assigned by the law, to state in what way he 
claimed to win the game, whether by tricks and 
honors, or otherwise. He did not do so, and 
cannot complain if he suffers by a confusion in- 
troduced by his own irregularity. It is quite 
possible that, in a similar case, a player should 
not have observed his honors until informed of 
them, but should have thought himself sure of 
five by cards. 

Case 2. — A. has the last trump, and one suit 
only, all winning cards, if played in their usual 
order, viz., the highest first. The lead is with 
his right-hand adversary, for whom he does not 
wait, but lays his thirteenth trump on the table, 
saying that it is the card he shall play to the 
coming trick, after which he plays out his suit, 
waiting for no one, the highest first, and one after 



148 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST 

the other. His adversary claims to call all these 
cards. 

Decision. — A.'s cards are not liable to be called. 
He has, however, declared the card which he will 
play to the coming trick, and this mnst be con- 
sidered to be, as against him. a legitimate act of 
playing. If, therefore, his adversary has a card 
of A.'s long suit, and leads it, A. has made a re- 
voke, which is past recovery, as, although no trick 
has been turned and quitted, he has played to a 
subsequent trick. 

This decision was much canvassed, but at last 
obtained general assent. I think that it was 
right. A player can in no way profit by pre- 
maturely declaring, or showing the card which he 
will play to his right-hand adversary's lead. Such 
declaration being taken as an act of playing, he 
runs a gratuitous risk. If the adversary has no 
card of the player's suit, again, nothing can by 
possibility be gained by the offender's irregularity, 
and he may, subject to the risk of having miscal- 
culated, save time without incurring punishment. 
It may be, however, that his partner may have a 
card or more of the player's long suit, in which 
case he would be amenable to the law, which 
gives to his adversary the right of calling on his 



DECISIOXS. 149 

partner to take, if he can, any of the tricks 
irregularly played. 

Case 3. — A. and B. are at the score of four. 
They lose the trick, hold two by honors, but they 
have revoked. Their adversaries, who had no 
previous score, elect to punish the offenders by 
deducting three from their score, thus leaving 
the game at •■one all." On this A. and B. claim 
to mark their honors, saying that there is nothing 
to prevent their so doing, as they are no longer at 
the score of four. They also urge that, if this 
case has not been distinctly provided for by law, 
it is within the powers of an arbitrator to supply 
the omission. 

Decision. — A. and B. cannot score their honors. 
Their claim is bad on every consideration. When 
they reached the score of four, they lost the right 
to score honors, and it is not reasonable that they 
should recover the right by committing a fault. 
Again, the laws of whist, in the case of a revoke, 
give to the aggrieved players the choice of any 
one of three ways of exacting the penalty. If 
the claim of A. and B. is good, the option is 
practically limited to one of two ways, when the 
revoking players are at the score of four, — a re- 
striction for which there is no reason, and which 
cannot have been the intention of the framers of 



150 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

the law. But it is argued that this is an omission 
in the laws, to supply which is within the powers 
of an arbitrator. It is true that an arbitrator 
may supply a palpable omission in the laws, when 
such omission inflicts an injury on innocent 
parties, but it cannot be right for him to do so 
when the only result of his labor is to give an ad- 
vantage to players who have committed an offence. 
There is, however, no omission in this case. If 
it had been intended, in any position of the game, 
or under any circumstances, to narrow the penalty 
for a revoke, it would have been so stated. To 
state the contrary is unnecessary. 

Case 4. — The dealer deals the last two cards on 
the packet of his right-hand adversary. Has he 
misdealt ? 

Decision. — He has misdealt. Two laws, some- 
what contradictory the one to the other, bear on 
this case. If the dealer deals two cards at once, 
he may rectify his error, provided that such rec- 
tification can be effected by the change of the 
position of one card only, and this law would ap- 
pear to give to the dealer the right of correcting 
his error. But another law declares that the deal 
is lost if the dealer places the trump card, its face 
downward, on his own or any other packet. In 
this conflict, the doubt must be construed against 



DECISIONS. 151 

the offender, for which in this case there is all 
the more reason, because the trump card has a 
peculiarly sacred character, which entitles it to 
more than ordinary protection against any con- 
fusion. 

Any doubt as to the above case has been set at 
rest by the laws now published with t\\Q highest 
official club sanction, and which especially provide 
against the difficulty. 

Case 5. — A., as he believes, misdeals, cuts to 
his adversary, who deals, and finds that his pack 
contains fifty-three cards, the surplus card being 
ascertained to be one which is missing from A/s 
pack. Can A. claim to take back his deal? 

Decision. — No. A. should have counted his 
pack in order to ascertain whether or no it was 
complete. It may have been so, and the surplus 
card may have found its way into B/s pack after 
A.'s deal. A. parted with his right when he 
cut to his adversary, which, however, he might 
have done under protest, while counting his own 
pack. 

Case 6. — A., who has the lead, places on the 
table a sufficient number of cards, all winning 
cards as against his adversary, to win the game, 
saying, " You may call them." Have his adver- 
saries no other remedy? 



152 A TREATISE ON SHORT WHIST. 

Decision. — A/s cards, in this case, are not ex- 
posed cards. As against himself, his adversaries 
have the right to treat them as played cards, and, 
having been played by him without waiting for 
his partner to play, his partner may be called on 
to win any one of them which he may be able to 
win, the remainder being then treated as exposed 
cards. A. had no right to prevent his partner 
from taking the lead out of his hand by a 
blunder, however gross. 

Case 7. — A., being fourth player, renounces. 
The trick is his partner's, but his adversary im- 
mediately turns and quits it. A. then finds that 
he has revoked. Is he too late to correct his 
error? 

Decision. — A. is in time to correct his error, 
unless he or his partner have played again. The 
adversary had no right to meddle with his part- 
ner's trick, whose turning and quitting, or that 
of A. himself, alone could have completed the 
revoke. 

Case 8. — A. takes a trick by trumping, and, as 
this trick makes him game, he throws down the 
remainder of his cards. It is then discovered 
that he has revoked. Is he too late to correct 
his error? He claims to correct it, his cards re- 
maining to be dealt with as exposed cards. 



DECISIONS. 153 

Decision. — A. lias revoked. His claim of the 
game, and throwing down his cards, must be held, 
as against himself, as an act of playing. His 
cards are also liable to be called. 



THE END. 



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time has maintained its rank as a master-piece of whimsical drollery. 
In its present form the poem reads like a fresh production. The inci- 
dents and costumes, of course, are German, but the language is decidedly 
the Yankee vernacular of the raciest kind, and its whole air of quaint, 
demure humor expressed in the most saucy familiar English makes it 
one of the most remarkable feats of translation in any literature. This 
should cause no surprise, however, to those who are acquainted with 
the previous successses of Mr. Pnooks in this line,'' 1 — Tribune. 



Heinrich Heine's Pictures of Travel. 

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Four American Poems. The Raven. The 

Bells. Lenore. The Rose. Metrically translated into 
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Wilh. von Humboldt's Letters to a Lady. 

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Mendelssohn's Letters from Italy and 

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Mendelssohn's Letters from 1833 to 1847. 

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Life of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. 

From the German of W. A. Lampadius, with Supplementary 

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Immen-See. Grandmother and Grand- 
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The Poetical Works of John Milton, with 

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Chaucer's Legende of Goode Women. 

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Schiller's Complete Works in English. 

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Schiller's Poems and Ballads. Translated 

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Life of Chopin. By F. Liszt. Trans- 
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Musical Sketches. By Elise Polko. 

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" The sketch of Bach and his performance of ' A mighty fortress is our 
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The Ice-Maiden 5 and other Tales. By 

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"Who Breaks— Pays" By the Author 

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Skirmishing. By the Author of "Who 

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Reader. 

Fanchon the Cricket. From the French 

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Human Follies. By Jules de Noriac. 

Translated from the 16th Paris edition by George Mablow, 

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The Romance of a Poor Young Man. 

Prom the French of Octave Feuillet. By Henry J. Mac- 
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The Romance of the Mummy. From the 

French of Theophile Gautier. By Mrs. Anne T. Wood, 
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